E 99 
Dl C83 
1906 



AMONG THE SIOUX 

A Story of 

The Th^in Cities and 
The Tu?o Dakotas 



BY 

THE REV. R. J. CRESWELL 

Author of 
*'WHO SLEW ALL THESE/' ETC. 



Introduction by 

THE REV. DAVID R. BREED, D. D. 



1906 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 




OUR PLATFORM. 

For Indians we want American Education, Ameri- 
can homes, American rights, — the result of which is 
American citizenship. And the Gospel is the power of 
God for their salvation! 




DEDICATION. 



TO NELLIE, 

(MY WIFE) 

Who, for forty years has been my faithful companion 
in the toils and triumphs of missionary service for the 
Freedmen of the Old Southwiest and the heroic pion- 
eers of the New Northwest, this volume is affection- 
ately inscribed. 

By the Author, 

R. J. Creswell. 



INTRODUCTION 

By the Rev. David R. Breed, D.D. 

The sketches which make up this little volume are 
of absorbing interest, and are prepared by one who 
is abundantly qualified to do so. J\lr. Creswell has 
had large personal acquaintance with many of those 
of whom he writes and has for years been a diligent 
student of missionary effort among- the Sioux. His 
frequent contributions to the periodicals on this sub- 
ject have received marked attention. Several of them 
he gathers together and reprints in this volume, so that 
while it is not a consecutive ' history of the Sioux 
missions it furnishes an admirable survey of the labors 
of the heroic men and women who have spent their 
lives in this cause, and furnishes even more interesting 
reading in their biographies that might have been giv- 
en upon the other plan. 

During- my own ministry in Minnesota, from 1870 
to 1885, I became very intimate with the great lead- 
ers of whom Mr. Creswell writes. Some of them were 
often in my home, and I, in turn, have visited them. 
[ am familiar with many of the scenes described in 
this book. I have heard from the missionaries' own 
lips the stories of their hardships, trials and successes. 
f have listened to their account of the great massacre, 
while with the tears flowing down their cheeks they 
told of the desperate cruelty of the savages, their de- 
feat, their conversion, and their subsequent fidelity tc 
the men and the cause they once opposed. I am grate- 
ful to Mr. Creswell for putting these facts into per- 
manent shape and bespeak for his volume a cordial re- 
ception, a wide circulation, and above all, the abundant 
blessing of God. 

David R. Breed. 
Allegheny, Pa., January, 1906. 



PREFACE. 

This volume is not sent forth as a full history of 
the Sioux Missions. That volume has not yet been 
written, and probably never will be. 

The pioneer missionaries were too busily engaged 
in the formation of the Dakota Dictionary and Gram- 
mar, in the translation of the Bible into that wild, 
barbaric tongue ; in the preparation of hymn books 
and text books : — in the creation of a literature for the 
Sioux Nation, to spend time in ordinary literary work. 
The present missionaries are overwhelmed with the 
great work of ingathering and upbuilding that has 
come to them so rapidly all over the widely extended 
Dakota plains. These Sioux missionaries were and 
are men of deeds rather than of words, — more intent 
on the making of histbr}^ than the recording of it. 
They are the noblest body of men and women that 
ever yet w^ent forth to do service, for our Great King, 
on American soil. 

For twenty years it has been the writer's privilege 
to mingle intimately with these missionaries and wnth 
the Christian Sioux; to sit with them at their great 
council fires ; to talk with them in their teepees ; to visit 
them in their homes ; to meet wdth them in their 
Church Courts ; to inspect their schools ; to worship 
with them in their churches ; and to gather with them 
on the greensward under the matchlesis Dakota sky 
and celebrate together with them the sw^eet, sacrcmen- 
tal service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. 

lie was so filled and impressed by what he there 
saw and heard, that he felt impelled to impart to oth- 
ers somewhat of the knowledge thus gained ; in order 
that they may be stimulated to a deeper interest in, 
and devotion to the cause of missions on American soil. 



INTRODUCTION 

By the Rev. David R. Breed, D.D. 

The sketches which make up this little volume are 
of absorbing interest, and are prepared by one who 
is abundantly qualified to do so. Mr. Creswell has 
had large personal acquaintance with many of those 
of whom he writes and has for years been a diligent 
student of missionary effort among- the Sioux. His 
frequent contributions to the periodicals on this sub- 
ject have received marked attention. Several of them 
he gathers together and reprints in this volume, so that 
while it is not a consecutive " history of the Sioux 
missions it furnishes an admirable survey of the labors 
of the heroic men and women who' have spent their 
lives in this cause, and furnishes even more interesting 
reading in their biographies that might have been giv- 
en upon the other plan. 

During- my own ministry in Minnesota, from 1870 
to 1885, I became very intimate with the great lead- 
ers of whom Mr. Creswell writes. Some of them were 
often in my home, and I, in turn, have visited them. 
[ am familiar with many of the scenes described in 
this book. I have heard from the missionaries' own 
lips the stories of their hardships, trials and successes. 
I have listened to their account of the great massacre, 
while with the tears flowing down their cheeks they 
told of the desperate cruelty of the savages, their de- 
feat, their conversion, and their subsequent fidelity tc. 
the men and the cause they once opposed. I am grate- 
ful to Mr. Creswxll for putting these facts into per- 
manent shape and bespeak for his volume a cordial re- 
ception, a wide circulation, and above all, the abundant 
blessing of God. 

David R. Breed. 
Allegheny, Pa., January, 1906. 



PREFACE. 

This volume is not sent forth as a full history of 
the Sioux ^Missions. That volume has not yet been 
written, atul probably never will be. 

The pioneer missionaries w^ere too busily engaged 
in the formation of the Dakota Dictionary and Gram- 
mar, in the translation of the Bible into that wild, 
barbaric tongue ; in the preparation of hymn books 
and text books : — in the creation of a literature for the 
Sioux Nation, to spend time in ordinary literary work, 
' The present missionaries are overwhelmed with the 
great work of ingathering and upbuilding that has 
come to them so rapidly all over the widely extended 
Dakota plains. These Sioux missionaries were and 
are men of deeds rather than of words, — more intent 
on the making of histbry than the recording of it. 
They are the noblest body of men and women that 
ever yet w^nt forth to do service, for our Great King, 
on American soil. 

For twenty years it has been the writer's privilege 
to mingle intimately with these missionaries and w^ith 
the Christian Sioux ; to sit with them at their great 
council fires ; to talk with them in their teepees ; to visit 
them in their homes ; to meet with them in their 
Church Courts ; to inspect their schools ; to worship 
with them in their churches ; and to gather w^ith them 
on the greensward under the matchlesLS Dakota skv 
and celebrate together with them the sweet, sacremen- 
tal service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. 

He was so filled and impressed by what he there 
saw and heard, that he felt impelled to impart to oth- 
ers somewhat of the knowledge thus gained ; in order 
that they may be stimulated to a deeper interest in, 
and devotion to the cause of missions on American soil. 



PREFACE, 

In the compilation of this work the author has 
drawn freely from these publications, viz. : 

The Gospel of the Dakotas, 
Mary and I, 

By Stephen R. Riggs, D. D., LL. D. 

Two Volunteer Missionaries By S. W. Pond, Jr. 

Indian Boyhood By Charks Eastman 

The Past Made Present, 

By Rev. William Fiske Brown 
The Word Carrier By Editor A. L. Riggs, D. D. 

The Martyrs of Walhalla, 

By Charlotte O. Van Cleve 

The Long Ago By Charles H. Lee 

The Dakota Mission, 

By Dr. L. P. Williamson and others 

Dr. T. S. Williamson By Rev. R. McQuesten 

He makes this general acknowledgment, in lieu of 
repeated references, which would otherwise be neces- 
sary throughout the book. For valuable assistance in 
its preparation he is very grateful to many mission- 
aries, especially to John P. Williamson, D.D., of Gren- 
wood, South Dakota ; A. L. Riggs, D. D. of Santee, 
Nebraska ; Samuel W. Pond, Jr., of Minneapolis, and 
Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, of Oak Grove, Minnesota. All 
these were sharers in the stirring scenes recorded in 
these pages. The names Dakota and Sioux are used 
as synonyms and the English significance instead of 
the Indian cognomens. 

May the blessing of Him who dwelt in the Burning" 
Bush, rest upon all these toilers on the prairies of the 
new Northwest. 

R. J. Creswell. 

Minneapolis, Minnesota, January, 1906. 



PARTI. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

The Pond Brothers. — Great Revival- Conversions.— Galena. — 
Rum-seller Decision. — Westward. — Fort Snelling. — Man 
of-the-Sky.— Log Cabin.— Dr. Williamson.— Ripley.— Lane 
Seminary.— St. Peters Church.— Dr. Riggs.— New England 
Mary. — Lac-qui-Parle. 

CHAPTER IL 

Ibe Lake-that- Speaks.— Lidian Church.— Adobe Edifice.— 
First School.— Mission Home. — Encouragements. — Discour- 
agements.— Kaposia.— New Treaty.— Yellow Medicine.— Bit- 
ter Winter — Hazlewood. — Traverse des Sioux. — Robert 
Hopkins.— Marriage.— Death.— M. N. Adams, Oak Grove.— 
J. P. Williamson, D. D. 

CHAPTER HI. 

Isolation.— Strenuous Life. — ^Formation o-f Dakota Language. 
Dictionary.— Grammar. — iterature. — Bible Translajtion. — 
Massacre: — Fleeing Missionaries. — Blood.— Anglo Sax- 
ons Triumph. — Loyal Indians. — Monument. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Prisoners in Chains.— Executions. — Pentecost in Prison.— 
Three Hundred Baptisms. — Church Organized. — Sacramen- 
tal Supper. — Prison Camp. — John P. Williamson. — One 
Hundred Converts. — Davenport. — Release.— Niobrara. — Pil- 
grim Church, 

CHAPTER V. 

1884 — lyakaptapte. — Couixil. — Discussions. — Anniversaries. — 
— Sabbath. — Communion. — The Native Missionairy Society. 

CHAPTER VI. 

1905— Sisseton.— John Baptiste Renville. — Presbytery of Da- 
kota. 



AMONG THE SIOUX. 

PART ONE. 

SOWING AND REAPING. 




They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. 
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing 

Precious Seed, 
Shall doubtless come again 

With rejoicing. 



Bringing his sheaves. 



Psalm 126' 



Chapter I 

Now appear the /low' rets fair 
Beautiful beyond compare 
And all nature seems to say, 
"Welcome, welcome, blooming May." 

It was 1834. A lovely day — the opening of the 
merry month of May! 

The Warrior, a Mississippi steamer, glided out of 
P'ever River, at Galena, Illinois, and turned its prow 
up the Mississippi. Its destination was the mouth of 
the St. Peters — now Minnesota River — five hundred 
miles to the north — the port of entry to the then un- 
known land of the Upper Mississippi. 

The passengers formed a motley group ; officers^ 
soldiers, fur-traders, adventurers, and two young men 
from New England. These latter were two brothers, 
Samuel William and Gideon Hollister Pond, from 
Washington, Connecticut. At this time, Samuel the 
elder of the two, was twenty-six years of age and in 
form, tall and very slender as he continued through 
life. Gideon, the younger and more robust brother 
was not quite twenty- four, more than six feet in 
height, strong and active, a specimen of well devel- 
oped manhood. With their clear blue eyes, and their 
tall, fully developed forms, they must have attracted 
marked attention even among that band of brawny 
frontiersmen. 

In 183 1 a gracious revival had occurred in their na- 



2 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

tive village of Washing-ton. It was so marked in its 
character, and permanent in its results, that it formed 
an epoch in the history of that region and is still spok- 
en of as "the great revival''. For months, during the 
busiest season of the year, crowded sunrise prayer- 
meetings were held daily and were well attended by 
an agricultural population, busily engaged every day 
in the pressing toil of the harvest and the hayfieJds. 
Scores were converted and enrolled themselves as sol- 
diers of the cross. 

Among these were the two Pond brothers. This 
was. in reality with them, the beginning of a new life. 
From this point in tlieir lives, the inspiring motive, 
with both these brothers, was a spirit of intense loy- 
altv to their new Master and a burning love for the 
souls of their fellowmen. Picked by the Holy Spirit 
out of more t!lian one hundred converts for special 
service for th^ Lord Jesus Christ, the Pond brothers 
resolutelv determined to choose a field of very hard 
service, one to which no others desired to go. In the 
search for such a field, Samuel the elder brother, jour- 
neyed from New Haven to Galena, Illinois, and spent 
the autumn and winter of 1833-34 in his explorations. 
He visited Chicago, then a struggling village of a few 
hundred inhabitants and other embryo towns and cities. 
He also saw the Winnebago Indians and the Pbtta- 
watomies, but he was not led to choose a field of labor 
amongst any of these. 

A strange Providence finally pointed the way to 
Mr. Pond. In his efforts to reform a rumseller at 
Galena, he gained much information concerning the 



SOWING AND REAPING. 3 

Sioux Indians, whose territory the rumseller had 
traversed on his way from the Red River country 
from which he had come quite recently. He repre- 
sented the Sioux Indians as vile, degraded, ignorant, 
superstitious and wholly given up to evil. 

"There," said the rumseller, "is a people for whose 
souls nobody cares. They are utterly destitute of mor- 
al and religious teachings. No' efforts have ever been 
made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fel- 
lows are looking, in earnest, for a hard job, there is 
one ready for you to tackle on those bleak prairies." 

This man's description of the terrible condition of 
the Sioux Indians in those times was fairly accurate. 
Those wild, roving and utterly neglected Indian;s 
were proper subjects for Christian effort' and prom- 
ised to furnish the opportunities for self-denying and 
stlf-sacrihcing labors for which the brothers were 
seeking. 

Mr. Pond at- once recognized this peculiar call as 
from God. After prayerful deliberation, Samuel de- 
termined to write to his brother Gideon, inviting the 
latter to join him early the following spring, and un- 
dertake with him an independent mission to the Sioux. 

He wrote to Gideon : — 'T have finally found the 
field of service for which we have long been seek- 
ing. It lies in the regions round about Fort Snelling. 
It is among the savage Sioux of those far northern 
plains. They are an ignorant, savage and degraded 
people. It is said to be a very cold', dreary, storm- 
swept region. But we are not seeking a soft spot to 
rest in or easv service. So come on." 



4 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Despite strong', almost bitter opposition from friends 
and kinsmen, Gideon accepted and began his prepara- 
\tions for life among the Indians, and in March, 1834, 
he bade farewell to his friends and kindred and began 
his journey westward. 

Early in April, he arrived at Galena, equipped for 
their strange. Heaven-inspired mission. He found his 
brother firmly fixed in his resolution to carry out the 
plans already decided upon. In a few days we find 
them on the steamer's deck, moving steadily up the 
mighty father of waters, towards their destination. 
"This is a serious undertaking," remarked the younger 
brother as they steamed northward. And such it was. 
There was in it no element of attractiveness from a 
human view-point. 

They expected to go among roving tribes, to have 
no permanent abiding place and to subsist as those 
wild and savage tribes subsisted. Their plan was a 
simple and feasible one, as they proved by experience, 
but one which required large stores of faith and for- 
titude every step of the way. They knew, also, that 
outside of a narrow circle of personal friends, none 
knew anything of this mission to the Sioux, or felt 
the slightest interest in its success or failure. But 
undismayed they pressed on. 

The scenery of the Upper Mississippi is still pleas- 
ing to those eyes, which behold it, clothed in its spring- 
time robes of beauty. In 1834, this scenery shone 
forth in all the primeval glory of ''nat'nre unmarred by 
the hand of man.'' 

As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way 




SAMUEL VV. POND, 
20 Years a Missionary to the Sioux. 




GiDFON H. POND^ 

For Twenty years Missionary to the Dakotas. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 5 

up the Mississippi, the rich May verdure, through 
which they passed, appeared strikingly beautiful to 
the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. 
It was a most delightful journey and ended on the 
sixth day of May, at the dock at old Fort vSnelling. 

This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civ- 
ilization. It had been established in 1819, as our front- 
guard against the British and Indians of the North- 
west. It was located on the high plateau, lying be- 
tween the Mississippi and tlie Minnesota (St. Peters) 
rivers, and it was then the only im])ortant place within 
the limits of the present state of Minnesota. 

While still on board the Warrior, the brothers re- 
ceived a visit and a warm welcome from the Rev. Will- 
iam T. Boutell, a missionarv of the American Board 
to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He 
was greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear breth- 
ren, who, from love to Christ and for the poor red 
man, had come alone to this long-neglected field." 

A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves 
in savage environments and face to face with the grave 
problems they had come so far to solve. They were 
men extremely well fitted, mentally and physically, nat- 
urally and by training for the toils and privations of 
the life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not 
by man but by the Lord ; appointed, not by any human 
authority but by the great Jehovah ; without salary or 
any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknowm, un- 
heralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead 
earnest, their grand life-work. Their mission and 
commission was to conquer that savage tribe of fierce. 



6 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

prairie warriors, by the two-edged sword of the spirit 
of the living God and to mold them aright, by the 
power of the Gospel of His Son. And God was with 
them as they took up their weapons (not carnal but 
spiritual) in this glorious warfare. 

They speedily found favor with the military au- 
thorities, and with one of the most prominent chieftains 
of that time and region — Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky. 

The former gave them full authority to prosecute 
their mission among the Indians; the latter cordially 
invited them to establish their residence at his village 
on the shore of Lake Calhoun. 

The present site of Minneapolis was then simply a 
vast, wind-swept prairie, uninhabited by white men. 
A single soldier on guard at the old government saw- 
mill at St. Anthony Falls was the only representative 
of the Anglo-Saxons, where now dwell hundreds of 
thousands of white men of various nationalities. 

Busy, bustling, beautiful Minneapolis, with its ele- 
gant homes ; its commodious churches ; its great Uni- 
versity — with its four thousand students — ; its well- 
equipped schools — with their forty-two thousand pu- 
pils — ; its great business blocks ; its massive mills ; its 
humming factories ; its broad avenues ; its pleasant 
parks ; its population of a quarter of a million of souls ; 
all this had not then even been as much as dreamed of. 

Four miles west of St. Anthony Falls, lies Lake 
Calhoun, and a short distance to the south is Lake 
Harriet, (two most beautiful sheets of water, both 
within the present limits of Minneapolis). The inter- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 7 

veiling space was covered by a gfove of majestic oaks. 

Here, in 1834, was an Indian village of five hun- 
dred Sioux. Their habitations were teepees, made of 
tamarack bark or of skins of wild beasts. Their burial 
ground covered a part of lovely Lakewood, the favorite 
cemetery of the city of Minneapolis. This band recog- 
nized Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky as their chief, 
whom they both . respected and loved. He was then 
about forty years of age. He was an intelligent man, 
of an amiable disposition and friendly to the approach 
of Civilization. Here, under the auspices of this fam- 
ous chieftain, they erected for themselves a snug, little 
home, near the junction of Thirty-fifth street and Ir- 
ving Avenue South, Minneapolis. 

lit was built of large oak logs. The dimensions 
were twelve feet by sixteen and eight feet high. 
Straight tamarack poles formed the timbers of the 
roof. The roof itself was the bark of trees, fastened 
with strings of the inner bark of the basswood. 

A partition of small logs divided the house into 
two rooms. The ceiling was of slabs from the old 
government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls. The door 
was made of boards, split from a tree with an axe, 
and had wooden hinges and fastenings and was locked 
by pulling in the la4;ch-string. The single window 
was the gift of the kind-hearted Major Taliaferro, the 
United States Indian ao:ent at Fort Snelling. The 
cash cost of the whole was one shilling, New York 
currency, for nails, used about the door. The formal 
opening was the reading of a porttion of Scripture and 
prayer. The banquet consisted of mussels from the 



8 x\MONG THE SIOUX. 

Lake, flour and water. This cabin was the first house 
erected within the present Hmits of MinneapoHs; it 
was the home of the first citizen settlers of Minnesota 
and was the first house used as a school-room and for 
divine worship in the state. It was a noble testimony 
to the faith, zeal and courage of its buidders. Here 
these consecrated brothers inaugurated their greaf 
work. In 1839 it was torn down for materials with 
which to construct breastworks for the defense of the 
Sioux, after the bloody battle of Rum River, against 
their feudal foes, the Ojibways. Here amid such love- 
ly natural surroundings were the very beginnings of 
this mighty enterprise. 

The first lesson was given early in May, by Samuel 
Pond to Big Thunder chieftain of the Kaposia band, 
whose teepees were scattered over the blufifs, where 
now stands the city of St. Paul. His chief soldier 
was Big Iron. His son was Little Crow, who became 
famous or rather infamous, as the leader against the 
whites in the terrible tragedy of '62. Later in May 
the second lesson was taught by Gideon Pond tO' mem- 
bers of the Lake Calhoun band. Both lessons were 
in the useful and civilizing art of plowing and were 
the first in that grand series of lessons, covering more 
than seventy years, and by which the Sioux nation 
have been lifted from savagery to civilization. 

While God was preparing the Pond brothers in the 
hill country of Connecticut for their peculiar life- 
work, and opening up the way for them to engage ifi 
it. He also had in training in the school of His Provi- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 9 

dences, in Massachusetts and Ohio, fitting helpers for 
them in this great enterprise. In the early 30's, at 
Ripley, Ohio, Dr. Thomas S. Williamson and Mrs. 
Margaret Poage Williamson, a young husband and 
wife, were most happily located, in the practice of his 
profession and in the upbuilding of a liappy Christian 
home. To this young couple the future seemed full 
of promise and permanent prosperity. Children were 
born to them ; they were prosperous and an honorable 
name was being secured through the faithful discharge 
of the duties of his most noble profession and of 
Christian citizenship. They regarded themselves as 
happily located for life. 

The mission call to Dr. and Mrs. Williamson was 
emphasized by the messenger of death. When the 
missionary call first came to them, they excused them- 
selves on account of their children. God removed the 
seeming obstacles, one by one. The little ones were 
called to the arms of Jesus. "A great trial !" A great 
blessing also. The way was thus cleared from a life 
of luxury and ease in Ohio to one of great denial 
and self sacrifice on mission fields. The bereaved par- 
ents recognized this call as from God, and by faith, 
both father and mother were enabled to say, ''Here 
are we ; send us." 

"This decision," says an intimate friend, "neither 
of them after for one moment regretted ; neither did 
they doubt that they were called of God to this great 
work, nor did they fear that their life-work would 
prove a failure." With characteristic devotion and 
energy. Dr. Williamson put aside a lucrative practice, 



lo AMONG THE SIOUX. 

and at once, entered on a course of preparation for his 
new work for which his previous Hfe and training had 
already given him great fitness. 

In 1833, he put himself under the care of the Pres- 
bytery of Chillicothe, removed with his family tO' Wal- 
nut Hills, Cincinnati, and entered Lane Seminary. 
While the Pond brothers in their log cabin at Lake 
Calhoun were studying the Sioux language, Dr. Will- 
iamson was compJeting his theological course on the 
banks of the beautiful river. He was ordained to the 
office of the gospel ministry in 1834. And in May, 
1835, he landed. at Fort Snelling with another band of 
missionaries. He was accompanied by his quiet, love- 
ly, faithful wife, Margaret, and one child, his wife's 
sister, Sarah Poage, afterwards Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, 
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander G. Huggins and two chil- 
dren. Mr. Huggins came as a teacher and farmer. 
During a stay of a few weeks here. Dr. Williamson 
presided at the organization of the first Protestant con- 
gregation in Minnesota, which was called the Presby- 
terian church of Sit. Peters. It consisted of officers, 
soldiers, fur-traders, and members of the mission fam- 
ilies — twenty-one in all ; seven of whom were received 
en confession of faith. It was organized at Fort Snel- 
ling, June II, 1835, ^^d still exists as the First Pres- 
byterian church of Minneapolis, with more than five- 
hundred members. 

Early in July, Dr. Williamson pushed on in the face 
of grave difficulties, two hundred miles to the west, 
to the shores of Lac-qui- Parle, the Lake-that-speaks. 
Here they were cordially welcomed by Joseph Ren- 




The Old Fort Snelling Church Developed. 



SOWING AND REAPING. ii 

ville, that famous Brois Brule trader, the half-breed 
chief who ruled that region for many years, bv force 
of his superior education and native abilities, and who 
ever was a strong and faithful friend of the missionar- 
ies. He gave them a temporary home and was help- 
ful in many ways. Well did the Lord repay him for 
his kindness to His servants. His wife ibecame the 
first full-blood Sioux convert to the Chri&tian faith, 
and his youngest son, John Baptiste Renville, then a 
little lad, became the first native Presbyterian minis- 
ter, one of the acknowledged leaders of his people. 

June, 1837, another pair of noble ones joined the 
ranks of the workers by the Lakeside. These were 
the Rev. S.tephen Return Riggs and his sweet Nevv- 
England Mary. He was a native of the beautiful val- 
ley of the Ohio; she was born amid the green hills 
of Massachusetts. His father was a Presbyterian el- 
der of Steiibenville, Ohio; her mother was a daugliter 
of New England. She herself was a pupil of the cul- 
tured and sainted Mary Lyon of Mount Holyoke. 

They were indeed choice spirits, well-fitted by na- 
ture and by training for a place in that heroic band, 
which God was then gathering together on the shores 
of Lakes Calhoun and Harrielt and Lac-qui-Parle, for 
the conquest of the fiercest tribe of prairie warriors 
that ever roamed over the beautiful plains of the New 
Northwest. He was a scholar and a linguist; courag- 
eous, energetic, firm, diplomatic ; she was cultured, 
gentle, tactful, and withal, both were intensely spirit- 
ual and deeply devoted to the glorious work of soul- 
vvdnning. Both had been trained as missionaries, with 



12 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

China as a prospective field of service. Step by step 
m the Providence of God, they were drawn together 
as life companions and then turned from the Orient 
to the Western plains. 

During these years of beginnings, Dr. Williamson 
fomied the acquaintance of Stephen R. Riggs, then a 
young man, which culminated in a life-long alliance of 
love and service. During his seminary course, Mr. 
Riggs received a letter from his missionary friend, to 
which, he afterwards referred thus : ''It seems to me 
now, strange that he should have indicated in that let- 
ter the possible line of work open to me, which has 
been so closely followed. I remember especially the 
prominence he gave to the thought that the Bible 
should be translated into the language of the Dakotas. 
Men do sometimes yet write as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost. That letter decided my going west- 
ward rather than to China." It was a lovely day, the 
first of June, when this young bride and groom ar- 
rived at Fort Snelling. Though it was their honey- 
moon, they did not linger long in the romantic haunts 
of Minnehaha and the Lakes; but pressed on to Lac- 
qui-Parle and joined hands with the toilers there in 
their mighty work of laying foundations broad and 
deep in the wilderness, like the coral workers in the 
ocean depths, out of sight of man. 

What a glorious trio of mission family bands were 
then gathered on Minnesota's lovely plains, on the 
shores of those beautiful lakes ! Pt»nd, Williamson, 
Riggs. Names that will never be forgotten while a 
Sioux Christian exists in earth or glory. 





1 ..4 ^^F ■■ 


1 


m^W'' p.; 


mlm 


^' Om- 



SOWING AND REAPING. ' 13 

When the American Mission Hall of Fame shall be 
erected these three names will shine out high upon 
the dome like "apples of gold in pictures of silver," 
Pond, Williamson, Riggs. ''And a book of remem- 
brance was written before him for them that feared 
the Lord and that thought upon his name. * * * And 
they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day 
when I make up my jewels." 



Chapter 11. 

In 1836, within one year from the arrival of Dr. 
Williamson and his missionary party at Lac-qui-Parle, 
a church was organized, with six native members, 
which in 1837, consisted of "seven Dakotas, besides 
half-breeds and whites, and, within five years, had en- 
rolled forty-nine native communicants. Of this con- 
gregation Alexander G. Huggins and Joseph Renville 
were the ruling elders. 

An adobe church edifice was erected in 1841, which 
for eighteen years met the wants of this people. In 
its belfry was hung the first church bell that ever rang 
out over the prairies of Minnesota, the sweet call to 
the worship of the Savior of the human race. The 
services of the church were usually held in the native 
language. The hymns were sung to French tunes, 
which were then the most popular. At the beginning, 
translations from the French of a portion of Scripture 
were read and some explanatory remarks were made 
by Joseph Renville. 

The first school for teaching Indians to read and 
write in the Dakota language, was opened in Decem- 
ber, i<S35, at lac-qui-Parle, in a conical Dakota tent, 
twenty feet in height. and the same in diameter. At 
first the men objected to being taught for various friv- 
olous reasons, but they were persuaded to make the 
effort. The school apparatus was primitive and main-^ 
ly extemporized on the spot. Progress was slow ; the 




00 



SOWING AND REAPING. 15 

attendance small and irregular, but in the course of 
three months, they were able to write to each other 
on birch bark. Those who learned to read and wTite 
the langutige properly, soon became interested in the 
gospel. The first five men, who were gathered into 
tlie church, were pupils of this first school. Of the 
next twenty, three were pupils and fourteen wxre 
the kindred of its pupils. Among their descendants 
were three Dakota pastors and many of the most faith- 
ful and fruitful communicants. 

One large log-house of five rooms, within the Ren- 
ville stockade, furnished a home for the three mission 
families of Dr. Williamson, Rev. Stephen R. Riggs 
and Gideon H. Pond. One room was both church and 
school room for years. Under this roof the mission- 
aries met frequently for conference, study and trans- 
lation of the word of God. Here, September 30, 1844. 
the original Dakota Presbytery w^as organized. 

For several years most of the members of this con- 
gregation were women. Once in the new and then 
unfinished church, edifice, more than one hundred In- 
dian men were gathered. When urged to accept 
Christ and become members of this church, they re- 
plied that the church was made up of squaws. Did tlie 
missionaries sui)pcse the braves avouM follow tbe lead 
of squaws ? Ugh ! l ^^h " 

For the first seven years, at Lac-qui-Parle, mission 
work was prosecuted, with marked success in .spite nf 
many grave hindrances. But for the four years fol- 
lowing — 1842-46 — the work was seriously retarded]. 



H) AMONG THE SIOUX. 

The crops failed and the savages charged their mis- 
fortunes to the missionaries. They became very ugh', 
and began a series of petty yet bitter persecutions a- 
gainst the Christian Indians and the missionaries. The 
children were forbidden to attend school; the women 
who favored the church had their blankets cut to 
pieces and were shut away from contact with the mis- 
sion. The cattle and horses of the mission were killed, 
and for a season the Lord's work was stayed at Lac- 
qui-Parle. Discouraged, but not dismayed His serv- 
antfe were watchful for other opportunities of helpful 
service. 

In 1846, the site of the present, prosperous cit}' of 
St. Paul, was occupied by a few shanties, owned by 
"certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," sellers of rum 
to the soldiers and the Indians. Nearby, scattered 
over the bluffs, were the teepees of Little Crow's band, 
forming the Sioux village of Kaposia. In 1846, Little 
Crow, their belligerant chieftain, was shot by his own 
brother, in a drunken revel. He survived the wound, 
but ai)parently alarmed at the influence of these mod- 
ern harpies over himself and his people, he visited Fort 
Snelling and begged a missionary for his village. The 
United States agent stationed there forwarded this 
petition to Lac-qui-Parle with the suggestion that Dr. 
Williamson be transferred to Kaposia. The invitation 
was accepted by the doctor, so in November, 1846, he 
became a resident of Kaposia (now South St. Paul). 
To this new station, he carried the same energy, hope- 
fulness and devotion, he had shown at the beginning. 
Here he remained six years, serving not only the In- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 17 

dians of Little Crow's band, but also doing great good 
to the white settlers, who were then gathering around 
the future Capital City of Minnesota. Here in 1848, 
he organized an Indian church of eight members. It 
increased to fifteen members, in 1851, when the In- 
dians were removed. 

Then followed the treaty of 185 1, which was of 
great import, both to the white man and to the red 
man. By this treaty, the fertile valley of the Minne- 
sota was thrown open for settlement to the whites. 
This took away from the vSioux their hunting-grounds, 
their cranberry marshes, their deer-parks and the 
graves of their ancestors. So the Dakotas of the Mis- 
sissippi and lower Minnesota packed up their teepees, 
their household goods and gods, some in canoes, some 
on ponies, some on dogs, some on the women, and 
slowly and sadly took up their line of march towards 
the setting of the sun. 

No sooner did the Indians move than Dr. William- 
son followed them and established a new station at 
Yellow Medicine, on the West bank of the Minnesota 
river and three miles above the mouth of the Yellow- 
Medicine river. The first winter there, was a fight 
for life. The house was unfinished; a very severe 
winter set in unvisually early, the snows were deep and 
the drifts terrible; the supply-teams were snowed in; 
the horses perished , the provisions were abandoned to 
the wolves and the drivers reached home in a half- froz- 
en condition. But God cared for His servants. In this 
emergency, the Rev. M. N. Adams, of Lac-qui-Parle, 
performed a most heroic act. In mid-v/inter, with the 



i8 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

thermometer many deg-rees below 5:ero, he hauled flour 
and other provisions for the missionaries, on a hand 
sled, from Lac-cini-Parle to Yellow Medicine, a dis- 
tance cf thirty- two miles. The fish gathered in shoals, 
an unusual occurrence, near the mission and both the 
Indians and the missionaries lived throug-h that ter- 
rible winter. Here, an Indian church of seventeen 
members was organized by Dr. Williamson. It in- 
creased to a membership of thirty in the next decade. 

In March, 1854, the mission houses at Lac-qui-Parle 
were destroyed by fire. A consolidation of the mis- 
sion forces was soon after effected. Dr. Rigg's and 
other helpers were transferred from Lac-qui-Parle to 
a point two miles distant from Yellow Medicine and 
called Omehoo (Hazelwood). A comfortable mission 
home was erected. The native Christians remo\^d 
from I.ac-qui-Parle and re-established their homes at 
Hazelwood. A boarding school was soon opened at 
this point by Rev. M. N. Adams. A neat chapel was 
also erected. A church of thirty members was organ- 
ized by Mr. Riggs. It grew to a membership of forty- 
five before the massacre. These were mainly from the 
the Lac-qui-Parle church which might be called the 
mother of all the Dakota churches. 

There were now gathered around the mission sta- 
tions, quite a community of young men, who had to 
a great extent, become civilized. With civilization 
came new wants — pantaloons and coats and hats. 
There was power also in oxen and wagons and brick- 
houses. The white man's axe and plow and hoe had 



SOWING AND REAPING. 19 

been introduced and the red man was learning to use 
them. So the external civilization went on. 

But the great and prominent force was in the under- 
lying education and* especially in the vitalizing and re- 
newing powt>r of Christian truth. So far as the inner 
life was changed, civilized habits became permanent; 
otherwise they were shadows. Evangelization was 
working out civilization. It is doing its permanently 
blessed work even yet. 

About this time occurred the formation of the Haz- 
elwood Republic. 

This was a band of Indians somewhat advanced in 
civilization, who were organized chiefly by the efforts 
of Dr. Riggs, under a written constitution and by-laws. 
Their officers were a President, Secretary and three 
judges, who were elected by a vote of the membership 
for a term of two years each. Paul Maza-koo-ta- 
mane was the first president and served for tw^o terms. 
This was an interesting experiment, in the series of 
efforts, by the missionaries, to change this tribe of no- 
mads from their roving teepee life to that of peiTnan- 
cnt dwellers in fixed habitations. The rude shock of 
savag.? warfare, which soon after revolutionized the 
whole Sioux nation, swept it away before its efficiency 
could be properly tested. Surely it was a novelty — an 
Indian band, regulated by written laws and governed 
by officers, elected by themselves for a temi of years. 
It now exists only in the memory of the oldest of the 
tribesmen or tlie missionaries. 

In 1843, a new station was established at Traverse 
des Sioux (near St. Peter, Minnesota,) by the Rev. 



.'o AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Stephen R. Riggs. This station was doomed to a trag- 
ic history. July 15, 1843,, Thomas Longley, the favor- 
ite brother of Mrs. Mary Riggs, was suddenly swal- 
lowed up in the treacherous waters of the Minnesota 
and laid to rest under what his sister was wont to call 
the ''Oaks of weeping" — three dwarf oaks on a small 
knoll. In 1844, Robert Hopkins and his young bride> 
joined the workers here. In 1851, July 4, Mr. Hop- 
kins was suddenly swept away to death by the fatal 
waves of the IMinnesota and his recovered body was 
laid to rest under the oaks where Thomas Longley had 
slept all alone for seven years. Thus the mission at 
Traverse des Sioux was closed by the messenger of 
death. It was continued, however, in the nearby fron- 
tier town of St. Peter, whose white settlers requested 
the Rev. M. N. Adams, one of the missionaries to the 
Sioux, to dcA'Cte his time to their spiritual needs. He 
complied and founded a white Presbyterian church and 
it is one of the strong Protestant organizations of Sou- 
thern Minnesota. 

In 1843, also the Pond brothers established a station 
at Oak Grove, twelve miles west of the Falls of St. An- 
thony. It was never abandoned. For many years it. 
was the center of beneficent influences to both races for 
miles around. It developed intO' the white Presbyter- 
ian church of Oak Grove, which still stands as a mon- 
ument to the many noble qualities of its founder, Rev. 
Gideon Hollister Pond. On the Sabbath scores of his 
descendants worship within its walls. The surround- 
ing community is composed largely of Ponds and their 
kindred. - . 



SOWING AND REAPING. 21 

In 1846, a mission was established at Red Wing by 
the Reverends J. ¥. Aiton and J. W. Hancock, and 
another in i860, at Red Wood by Rev. John P. Wil- 
Hamson. 

In 1858, a church was organized at Red Wing with 
twelve members. This was swept away by the out- 
break in 1862. 

Dr. John P. Williamson, who was born in 1835, in 
one of the mission cabins on the shores of Lac-qui- 
Parle, who has spent his whole life among the Sioux 
Indians, and who with a singleness of purpose, worthy 
of the apostle Paul, has devoted his whole life to their 
temporal and spiritual uplift, thus vividly sketches mis- 
sionary life among the Sioux in his boyhood days : 
''Aiy first serious impression of life was that I was 
living under a great weight of something, and as I 
began to discern more clearly, I found this weight to 
be the all-surrounding overwhelming presence of hea- 
thenism, and all the instincts of my birth and culture 
of a Christian home set me at antagonism to it at every 
point. 

'This feeling of disgust was often accompanied 
with fear. At times, violence stalked abroad un- 
challenged and dark lowering faces skulked about. 
Even when we felt no personal danger this incubus of 
sava^ff life all around weighed on our hearts. Thus it 
was day and night. Even those hours of twilight, 
which brood with sw^eet influences over so many lives, 
bore to us, on the evening air, the weird cadences of 
the heathen dance or the chill thrill of the war-whoop. 

Ours was a serious life. The earnestness of our par- 
ents in the pursuit of their work could not fail to im- 



■22 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

press in some degree the children. The main purpose 
of Christianizing that people was felt in everything. It 
was like garrison life in time of war. But this serious- 
ness was not ascetical or morose ful. Far from it. Those 
missionary- heroes were full of gladness. With all the 
disadvantages of such a childhood was the rich privi- 
lege of understanding the meaning of cheerful earnest- 
ness in Christian life." 




Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, D. D., LL. D., 

Forty-five Years a Missionary to the Dakotas. 



Chapter III. 

Thus for more than a quarter of a century, the glo- 
rious work of conquering the Sioux nation for Christ 
went on. It was pushed vigorously at every mission 
station from Lac-qui-Parle tO' Red Wing and from 
Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in 
these years. And such a w^ork ! 

The workers were buried out of sight of their fel- 
low-white men. Lac-qui-Parle was more remote from 
Boston than Manilla is today. It took Stephen R. 
Riggs three months to pass with his New England 
bride from the green hills of her native state to Fort 
Snelling. It was a further journey of thirteen days 
over a trackless trail, through the wilderness, to their 
mission home on the shores of the Lake-that-speaks. 
Even as late as 1843, it required a full month's travel 
for the first bridal tour of Agnes Carson Johnson as 
Mrs. Robert Hopkins from the plains of Ohio to the 
prairies of Minnesota. It was no pleasure tour in 
Pullman palace cars, on palatial limited trains, swift- 
ly speeding over highly polished rails from the far 
east to the Falls of St. Anthony, in those days. It was 
a weary, weary pilgrimage of wrecks by boat and stage, 
by private conveyance and oft-times on foot. One 
can make a tour of Europe today with greater ease 
and in less time than those isolated workers at Lac-qui- 
Parle could revisit their old homes in Ohio and New 
England. 



'2.\ AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Within their reach was no smithy and no mill until 
they built one ; there was no postoffice within one hun- 
dred miles, and all supplies were carried from Boston 
to New Orleans by sloops; then by steamboats almost 
the whole length of the Mississippi ; then ithe flatboat- 
men sweated and swore as they poled them up the Min- 
nesota to the nearest landing-place; then they had to 
be hauled overland one hundred and twenty-five miles. 
These tri])s were ever attended with heavy toil, often 
with groat suffering and sometimes with loss of life. 

vSmall was the support received from the Board. 
The entire income of the mission, including govern- 
ment aid to the schools, was less than one thousand 
dollars a year. Upon this meager suni, three ordained 
missionaries, two teachers and farmers, and six women, 
with eight or ten children were maintained. This also, 
covered travelling expenses, books and printing. 

The rude and varied dialects of the different bands 
of the savage Sioux had been reduced to a written lan- 
guage. This was truly a giant task. It required men 
who were fine linguists, very studious, patient, persist- 
ent, and capable of utilizing their knowledge under 
grave difficulties. Such zvere the Ponds, Dr. William- 
son, Mr. Riggs and Joseph Renville by whom the great 
task was accomplished. It took months and years of 
patient, persistent, painstaking efforts ; but it was final- 
ly accomplished. 

In JS52, the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar were 
published by the Smithsonian Institute at its expense. 
The dictionary contained sixteen thousand words and 
received the warm commendation of philologists gen- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 25 

erally. The language itself is still growing and valu- 
able additions are being made to it year by year. 

Within a few years, a revised and greatly enlarged 
edition should be. and probably will be published for 
the benefit of the Sioux nation. 

The Word of God too, had been translated into this 
wild, barbaric tongue. This was in truth a mighty un- 
dcrtakino-. It involved on the part of the translators 
a knowledge of the French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and 
Sioux tongues and required many years of unremitting 
toil on the part of those, who wrought out its accom- 
plishment in their humble log cabins on the shores of 
Lakes Calhoun and Lac-qui-Parle, and at Kaposia and 
Traverse des Sioux, Yellow INledicine and Hazel wood. 

But it, too, was completed and published in 1879, by 
the American Bible Society. Hymn-books and text- 
books had also been prepared and published in the new 
lang'uag'e. Books like the Pilgrims Progress had been 
issued in it — a literature for a great nation had been 
created. Comfortable churches and mission homes 
had been, erected at the various mission stations. Out 
of the eight thousand Sioux Indians in Minnesota, 
more than one hundred converts had been gathered in- 
to the church. The faithful missionaries, who had 
toiled so long, with but little encouragement, now 
looked forward hopefully into the future. 

Apparently the time to favor their work had come. 
But suddenly all their pleasant anticipations vanished — 
all their high hopes v/ere blasted. 

It was August 17, 1862, a lovely Sabbath of the 
Lord. It was sacramental Sabbath at Hazelwood. As 



26 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

their custom was, that congregation of believers and 
Yellow' JNIcdicine came together to commemorate their 
Lord's death. The house was well-filled and the mis- 
sionaries have ever remembered that Sabbath as one of 
precious interest, for it was the last time they ever as- 
sembled in that beautiful little chapel. A great trial of 
their faith and patience was before them and they knew 
it not. But the loving Saviour knew that both the 
missionaries and the native Christians required just 
such a rest with Him before the terrible trials came up- 
on them. 

As the sun sank that day into the bosom of the prai- 
ries, a fearful storm of fire and blood burst upon the 
defenseless settlers and missionaries. Like the dread 
cyclone, it came, unheralded, and like that much-to-be- 
dreaded monster of the prairies, it left desolation and 
death in its pathway. The Sioux arose against the 
whites and in their savage wrath swept the prairies of 
Western Minnesota as with a besom of destruction. 
One thousand settlers perished and hundreds of happy 
homes were made desolate. The churches, school- 
houses and homes of the missionaries were laid in ash- 
es. However, all the missionaries and their house- 
holds escaped safely out of this fiery furnace of bar- 
baric fury to St. Paul and Minneapolis. All else 
seemed lost beyond the possibility of recovery. 

In dismay, the missionaries fled from the wreck of 
their churches and homes. There were forty persons 
in that band of fugitives, missionaries and their friends, 
who spent a week of horrors — never-to-be-forgotten — 
in their passage over the prairies to St. Paul and Min- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 27 

neapolis. By day they were horrified by the marks of 
bloody cruelties along their pathway — dead and mang- 
led bodies, wrecked and abandoned homes. At night, 
they were terrified by the flames of burning homes and 
fears of the tomahawks and the scalping knives of their 
cruel foes. The nights were full of fear and dread. 
Every voice was hushed except to give necessary or- 
ders ; every eye swept the hills and valleys around ; 
every ear was intensely strained to catch the faintest* 
noise, in momentary expectation of the unearthly war- 
whocp and of seeing dusky forms with gleaming toma- 
hawks uplifted. In the moonlight mirage of the prai- 
ries, every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock 
grew into a bleed thirsty Indian, just ready to leap up- 
on them. But, Ijy faith, they were able to sing in 
holy confidence ; 

*'God is our refuge and our strength; 

In straits a present aid; 
Therefore although the hills remove 
We will not be afraid." 
Anc: the God, in whom they trusted, fulfilled his 
promises to them and brought them all, in safety, to 
the Twin Cities. And as they passed the boundary line 
of safety, every heart joined in the glad-song of praise 
and thanksgiving, which went up to heaven. ''Jeho- 
vah has triumphed, His people are free," seemed to 
ring through the air. 

Little Crow, the chieftain of the Kaposia Band was 
the acknowledged leader of the Indian forces in this 
uprising. He was forty years of age, possessed of con- 
siderable militarv ability : wise in council and br':ive on 



PEIRII^S BY THE HEATHEN 









Missionaries fleeing- from Indian mas- 
I sacre in 1862. 

Thursday morning of that terrible week, after an all- 
night's rain, found them all cold, wet through and ut- 
terly destitute of cooked food and fuel. That noon they 
came to a clump of trees and camped down on the wet 
prairies for the rest of the day. They killed a stray 
cow and made some bread out of flour, salt and water. 
An artist, one of the company, took the pictures here 



2ii> AMONG THE SIOUX. 

the field of battle. He had wrought, in secret, with his 
fellow-tribesmen, until he had succeeded in the fomia- 
tion of the greatest combination of the Indians against 
the whites since the days of Tecumse'h and the Prophet 
in the Ohio country, fifty years before. He had under 
his control a large force of Indian warriors armed with 
Winchesters; and on the morning of the battle, he 
mustered on the hills around New Ulm, the largest 
body of Indian cavalry ever gathered together in Amer- 
ica. 

The whites arose in their might and, under the 
leadership of that gallant general, Henry H. Sibley, 
gave battle to their savage foes. Then followed weeks 
of fierce and bloody warfare. It was no child's play. 
Dn the one side were arrayed the fierce warriors of 
the Sioux nation, fighting for their ancestral homes, 
their ancient hunting grounds, their deer-parks and 
the graves of their ancestors. "We must drive the 
white man east of the Mississippi," was the declaration 
of Little Crow, and he added the savage boast; 'AVe 
will establish our winter-quarters in St. Paul and Min- 
neapolis." Over against them, were the brave pion- 
etrs cf Minnesota, battling for the existence of their 
beloved state, for their homes, and for the lives and 
honor of their wives and daughters. The thrilling 
history of the siege of New Ulm, of the battle of Birch 
Coullie, of Fori Ridgcly and Port Abercrombie, and of 
other scenes of conflict is written in the mingled blood 
of the white man, and of the red man on the beauti- 
ful plains of western Minnesota. The inevitable re 
suit ensued. The Sioux were defeated, large numbers 



SOWING AND REAPING. 29 

were slain in battle or captured, and in despair, the 
others fled to the then uninhabited regions beyond the 
Red River o\ the North. Many of these found ref- 
uge under tlie Hritish flag in Prince Rupert's Land 
( now Manitoba ). 

One of the redeeming features in this terrible trag 
edy of '62. was the unflinching loyalty of the Chris- 
tian Sioux to the cause of peace. They stood finnly 
together against the war-party and for the whites. 
They abandoned their homes and pitched their tee- 
pees closely together. This became the rallying point 
for all who were opposed to the outbreak. They call- 
ed it Camp Hope, which was changed after the flight 
of Little Crow's savage band to Camp Lookout. Two 
days later, when General Sibley's victorious troops 
arrived, it was named Camp Release. Then it was 
that the captives, more than three hundred in number 
were released, chiefly through the efforts of the Chris- 
tianized Indians. 

In 1902, at the celebration of the fortieth anniver- 
sary of the battle of New Ulm, by invitation of the 
citizens, a band of Sioux Indians pitched their tee- 
pees in the public square and participated in the ex- 
ercises of the occasion. This was a striking illustra- 
tion of the amity now existing between the two races 
upon the very ground, where their immediate ances- 
tors so eagerly sought each other's life-blood, in the 
•recent i)ast. Here on the morn of battle, on the sur- 
rounding hills, in the long ago. Little Crow had marsh- 



30 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

ailed his fierce warriors, who rushed eagerly in savage 
glee, again and again, to the determined assault, only 
to be driven back, by ihe brave Anglo-Saxon defend- 
ers. Tablets, scattered here and there over the plains, 
m the valley of the Minnesota River, tell the story of 
the Sioux nation, in the new Northwest. 

John Baptiste Renville, a licentiate of the Presbyter- 
ian church, and who later was a famous preacher of 
great power among his own people, remained inside 
of the Indian lints, and was a powerful factor in caus- 
ing the counter revolution which hastened the over- 
throw of the rebellion, and the deliverance of the 
white captives. Elder Peter Big Fire turned the war 
party from the trail of the fleeing missionaries and 
their friends, thus saving two-score lives. One In- 
dian alone, John Other-Day, saved the lives of sixty- 
two whites. One elder of the church, Simon Anak- 
wangnanne, restored a captive white woman and three 
children. And still another, Paul Mintakutemanne, 
rescued a white woman and several children and a 
whole family of half-breeds. These truly ''good Indi- 
ans" saved the lives of more than their own number 
of whites, — probably two hundred souls in all. 

In token of her appreciation of these invaluable ser- 
vices, Minnesota has caused a monument to be erect- 
ed in honor of these real braves, on the very plains^ 
then swept by the Sioux with fire and blood, in 
their savage wrath. 

It is located on the battlefield of Birch Coullie, near 
iNIorton in Renville County. The cenotaph is built 
entirelv of native stone of different varieties. It rises 



SOWING AND REAPING. 31 

to the height of fifty-eight feet above the beautiful 
prairies bv \vliich 11 is siirronndeei. It bears this 30- 
prupriate mscnpl'ori 



HUMANITY. 

Erected A. D. 1899, by the Minnesota Yallev 
Historical vSociety to commemorate the brave, 
faithful and humane conduct of the loyal Indi- 
ans who saved the lives of white people and 
were true to their obligations throughout the 
Sioux war in Minnesota in 1862, and especially 
to honor the services of those here named : 

Other Day — Ampatutoricna. 

Paul — Mintakutemanne. 

Lorenzo Lawrence — Towanctaton. 

Simon — Anakwangnanne. 

Mary Crooks — Mankahta Heita-win. 



Chapter IV. 

"Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to 
their windows?" — Isaiah do: 8. 



But now occurred the strangest phase of this won- 
drously strange story. In November, 1862, four 
hundred defeated Indian warriors, many of them lead- 
ers of their people, were confined in prison-pens at 
Mankato, Minnesota. While free on the prairies, 
these wild warriors had bitterly hated the missionar- 
ies with all the intensity of their savage natures. They 
had vigorously opposed every effort of the mission- 
aries in their behalf. They had scornfully rejected 
the invitations of the Gospel. But now in their claims, 
they earnestly desired to hear the glad tidings they 
had fcrmeriy scorned. They sent for the mission- 
aries to visH them in prison and the missionaries re- 
sponded with v^ager joy. And the Holy Spirit accom- 
panied them. Thirty-eight of the prisoners were 
under the death-sentence and were executed in Decem- 
ber. 

'M remember," said Dr. Williamson, "feeling a great 
desire to preach to them, mingled with a kind of terror 
partly from a sense of grave responsibility in speaking 
to so many whose probation was so nearly closed, and 
partly from a sense of fear of hearing them say to 
me "Go home; when we were free we would not hear 
you ])reach to us ; whv do you come here to torn^ent 



SOWING AND REAPING. 33 

us when we are in chains and cannot go away. It" 
was a great rehef to find them listening intently to all 
I had to say." 

The prisoners were supplied with Bibles and other 
books, and for a time; the prison became a school. 
They were all eager to learn. The more their minds 
were directed to God and His Word, the more they 
became interested in secular studies. 

Very soon the Indians of their own accord began 
holding meetings every morning and evening in which 
ihey sang and spoke and prayed. In a short time, 
there were ninety converts that would lead in public 
prayer. Of those who were executed, thirty were 
baptized. Standing in a foot of snow, manacled two 
and two, they frecjuently gathered to sing' and prav 
and listen to the w^ords of eternal life. Of this work, 
the Rev. Gideon H. Pond wrote at the time; "There 
is a degree of religious interest manifested by them, 
which is incredible. They huddle themselves togeth- 
er every morning and evening, read the scriptureri, sing- 
hymns, confess one to another and pray together. 
They declare they have left their superstitions forever, 
and that they do and will embrace the religion of 
Jesus." 

In March, Mr. Pbnd visited Mankato again and 
spent two Sabbaths with the men in prison, establish- 
ing them in their new faith. Before his departure, he 
administered the Lord's supper, to these new converts. 
And again the Mankato prison-pens witnessed a 
strange and wondrous scene. Three hundred embitter- 
ed, defeated Indian warriors, manacled, fettered witli 



:a among the sioux. 

balls and chains, — but clothed and in their right minds, 
—were sitting in groups upon the wintry grounds rev- 
erently observing the Lord's supper. Elders Robert 
Hopkins, Peter Big Fire and David Grey Cloud offi- 
ciated with j-evcrence and dignity. The whole mcve- 
luent was jnarvelous! It was like a ''nation born in a 
day." And after many years of severe testing, all whri 
know the facts, testify that it was a genuine work of 
God's Holy Spirit. The massacre and the subsequeni 
events destroyed the power of the Priests of Devils, 
which had previously ruled and ruined these wretch- 
es tribes. They themselves, exploded the dynamite 
under the throne of Paganism and shattered it to frag- 
ments forever. 

In 1863, these Indians were transferred to Daven- 
port, Towa, where thev were confined in prison for 
three years. In 1866 they were released by the gov- 
ernment and returned to their native prairies, where 
they then became the nuclei of other churches, other 
Sabbath schools and other church organizations ; and 
so these formerly savage Sioux became a benediction 
rather than a terror to their neighbors on the plains of 
the Dakotas. The church of the prison-pen became 
tile |)roiifi(: mother of churches. 

While these events were transpiring in the prison- 
pen at Mankato, a similar work of grace was also in 
progress in the prison camp at Fort Snelling, where 
fifteen hundred men, women and children , mainly the 
families of the Mankato prisoners, were confined under 
guard. The conditions, in both places, were very 
similar. In the camp as well as in the prison, thev 



SOWING AND REAPING. 35 

Avero in g'rave troubles and great anxieties. In their 
clistr^>>es they called mightily upon the Lord. Here 
John, the Beloved (John P. Williamson D.D.) minis- 
tered to their temporal and spiritual wants. The Lord 
heard and answered their burning and agonizing cries. 
By gradual steps, but with overwhelming power came 
the heavenly visitation. Many were convicted; con- 
fessions and professions were made; idols reverenced 
lor many generations were thrown away by the score. 
More than one hundred and twenty were baptized and 
organized into a Presbyterian church, which, after 
3'ears of bitter wandering, was united with the church 
of the Prison Pen and formed the large congregation 
of the Pilgrim church. 

Thus all that winter long, '62-3, there was in prog- 
ress within the rude walls of those terrible prison-pens 
at Mankato, one of the most wonderful revivals since 
the day of Pentecost. And in February, '63, Dr. Will- 
iamson and Rev. Gideon H. Pond spent a week in 
special services amongst them. 

The most careful examinations possible were made 
into their individual spiritual condition and the most 
faithful instruction given them as to their Christian du- 
ties ; then those Indian warriors were all baptized, re- 
ceived into the communion of the church and org'an- 
izeci into a Presbyterian church within the walls of the 
stockade; three hundred in a day! Truly impressive 
was 

THE BAPTISMAL SCENE. 

The conditions of baptism were made very plain to 
the prisoners and it was offered to onh' such as were 



AMONG THE SIOUX. 

willing to comply fully with those conditions. AH 
were forbidden to receive the rite, who did not do it 
lieartily to the God of Heaven, whose eye penetrated 
each of their iiearts. All, by an apparently hearty re- 
sponse, indicated their desire to receive the rite on the 
croflfered conditions. As soon as the arrangements 
were completed, the}- came forward one by one, as 
their names were called and were baptized into the 
name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while each 
subject stood with the right hand raised and head bow- 
ed and many of them with their eyes closed with an 
appearance of profound reverence. As each came for- 
ward to be baptized one of the ministers addressed to 
him in a low voice a few appropriate words. This was 
the sr.bstance of these personal addresses. ''My broth- 
er, this is a mark of God, which is placed upon you. 
You will carry it with you while you live. It intro- 
duces you into the great family of God who looks 
down from heaven, not upon your head but into your 
heart. This ends your superstition, and from this time 
you are to call God your Father. Rem'ember to hono^ 
Him. Be resolved to do His will." Each one re- 
sponded heartily, ''Yes, I will." 

Gideon H. Pond then addressed them collectively. 

"Hitherto I have addressed you as friends ; now I 
call you brethren. For years we have contended to- 
gether on this subject of religion; now our contentions 
cease. We have one Father, we are one family. I 
shall soon leave you and shall probably see your faces 
no more in this world. Your adherence to the medi- 
cine sack and the Natawe (consecrated war weapons) 



SOWING AND REAPING. 37 

have brought you to your ruin. The Lord Jesus 
Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. 
He looks not upon your heads nor on your lips but 
into your bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a 
term of brothtrh salutation, to which you have been 
accustomed to your medicine dances and say to you : 
*' 'Brethren I spread my hands over you and bless 
you.' " Three hundred voices responded heartily^ 
'* *Amen, vea and Amen.' " 



Chapter V. 

It was 1884. Fifty years since the coming of the 
Pond brothers to Fort Snelhng — twenty-one years 
since the organization of the church in the prison-pen 
at Mankato, One bright September day, from the 
heights of Sisselon, South Dakota, a strangely beau- 
tiful scene was spread out before the eye. In the dis- 
tance the waters of Lake Traverse (source of the Red 
River of the North), and Big Stone Lake (head wat- 
ers of the Minnesota), glistened in the bright sunshine, 
their waters almost commingling ere they began their 
diverse journeyings — the former to Hudson's Bay,, the 
latter to the Gulf of Mexico. At our feet were prair- 
ies rich as the garden of the Lord. The spot was lyak- 
aptapte, that is the Ascension. Half-way up was a 
large wooden building, nestling in a grasy cove. Round 
about on the hillsides were white teepees. Dusky 
fonns wa^re passing to and fro and pressing round the 
doors and windows. We descended and found our- 
selves in the midst of a throng of Sioux Indians. In- 
stinctively we asked ourselves, Why are they here? Is 
this one of their old papan festivals? Or is it a coun- 
cil of war? We entered. The spacious house was 
densely packerl ; v/e pressed our way to the front. 
Hark! They are singing. We could not understand 
the words, but the air w^as familiar. It was Bishop 
Heber's hymn (in the Indian tongue) : 



SOWING AND REAPING. 39 

"From Greenlands icy mountains, 
From India's coral strand. 

* i\' :!= 

Salvation ! O Salvation ! 

The joytul sound proclaim, 
Till each remotest nation 

Has learned Messiah's Name. 
Waft, waft, ye winds. His story, 
And you, ye waters, roll. 
Till like a sea of glory 

It spreads from pole to pole." 

With what joyful emphasis, this strange congrega- 
tion sang these words. 

We breathed easier. This was no pagan festival, no 
savage council of war. It was the fifteenth grand an- 
nual council of the Dakota Christian Indians of the 
Northwest. 

The singing was no weaklunged performance — not 
altogether harmonious, but vastly sweeter than a war- 
whoop ; certainly hearty and sincere and doubtless an 
acceptable offering of praise. The Rev. John Baptiste 
Renville was the preacher. His theme was Ezekiel's 
vision of the \'alley of Dry Bones. We did not knew 
how he handled his subject. But the ready utterance, 
the sweet flov/ of words, the simple earnestness of the 
speaker and the fixed attention of the audience mark- 
ed it as a complete success. When the sermon was fin- 
ished, there was another loud-voiced hymn and then 
the Council of Days was declared duly opened. 

Thus they gather themselves together, year by year 



40 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

to take counsel in reference to the things of the king- 
dom. The Indian moderator, Artemas Ehnamane. the 
Santee j-astor, was a famons paddle-man, a mighty 
linnter and the son of a great conjnror and war-proph- 
et, but withal a tender, faithfnl, spiritual pastor of his 
people. Rev. Alfred L. Riggs, D.D.. the white mod- 
eratCJt, who talked so glibly alternately in Sioux and 
English and smiled so sweetly in both languages at 
once, was "Good Bird," one of the first white babes 
born at Lac-qui- Parle. John, The Beloved, one of the 
chief white workers, as a boy had the site of Minneap- 
olis and St. Paul for a play-ground, and the little In- 
dian lads for his playmates. That week we spent at 
lyakaptapte was a series of rich, rare treats. We list- 
ened to the theological class of young men. students 
of Santee and Sisseton. We watched the smiling fac- 
es of the women as they bowed in ])rayer, and brought 
their offerings to the missionary meetings. Such won- 
drous liberality those dark-faced sisters displayed. We 
marked with wonder the intense interest manifested 
hour by hour by all classes in the sermons, addresses, 
and especially in the discussion : "How^ shall we build 
up the church?" Elder David Grey Cloud said, "We 
uiust care for the church if we would make it effective. 
We must care for all we gather into the church." The 
Rev. James Red- Wing added, "The work of the 
church is heavy. When a Red River cart sticks in the 
mud we call all the help we can and together we lift ii 
out; we must all lift the heavy load of the church.'' The 



SOWING AND REAPING. 41 

Rev. David Grey Cloiul closed with: "We nnisjt casi 
out all enmity, have love for one another and then we 
shall be strong.'' 

"Does the keeping of Dakota customs benefit or in- 
jure the Dakota People?" 

Deacon Boy-that-walks-on-the-water responded em- 
phatically. '*The ancient Dakota customs are all bad. 
There is no good in them. They are all sin, all sor- 
row. All medicine men are frauds. Jesus is the only 
one to hold to." Rev. Little-Iron-Thunder said 
"When I was a boy I was taught the sacred dances and 
all the mysteries; to shoot with the bag; to hold the 
sacred shell. To gain a name, the Dakotas will suffer 
hunger, cold, even death. But all this is a cheat, it 
will not give life to the people. Only one name wil. 
give life, — even Jesus." Rev. Daniel Renville de- 
clared : "Faith is the thing our people need ; not faith 
in everything, but faith in Christ ; not for hope of re- 
ward.'' 

There were evening gatherings in the interest of tin- 
Young Men's Christian Associations and the Yount 
People's Christian Endeavor Societies. These are two 
of the most hopeful features of the work. With the 
young men and maidens of the tribe in careful training 
in Christian knowledge and for Christian service, there 
must be far-reaching and permanent beneficent results. 

Sabbath came! A glorious day! A fitting crown of 
glory for a week of such rare surprises. A strange 
chanting voice, like that of a herald mingled with our 



42 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

day-break dreams. Had we been among the Moslems^ 
we shoiild have thc)Ui>ht it the muezzin's cry. It was 
all Indian to us, but it was indeed a call to prayer 
with this translation in English : — 

''Morning is coming"! Morning is coming! Wake up! 
Wake up ! Come to sing ! Come to pray." 

Very soon, the sweet music of prayer and pr.iise 
from the v.liitc teepees on the hillside, rose sweetly on 
the air, telling us that the day of their glad solemnities 
had 1:)Cgun. The great congregation assembled in the 
open air. Pastor Renville, who as a little lad played 
at the feet of the translators of the Bible into the Sioux 
language, and who as a young man organized a coun- 
ter revolution among- the Christian Indians in favor 
of the government in the terrible days of '62, presided 
with dignity, baptizing a little babe and receiving sev- 
eral recent converts into the church. ,\ man of rare 
powers and sweet temperament is the Rev. John Ba])- 
tiste Renville, youngest son of the famous Joseph Ren- 
ville. A wonderfully strange gathering is this. Hun- 
dreds of Indians seaited in semi-circles on the grass, 
reverently observing the Lord's Supper. Probablv 
one-third of the males in that assemblage were parti- 
cipants in the bloody wars of the Sioux nation. The 
sermon was delivered by Solomon His-Own-Grand- 
father, who had taken an active part in the war of 
1862, but was now a missionary among his own people 
in Manitoba. The bread was broken by Artemas F.h- 
namane (''Walking Along"), who was condemned 
and pardoned, and then converted after that appalling 
tragedv in 1862. The wine was poured by the man 



SOWJXG AXD RKAPIXG. 43 

whom all the Sioux lovingly call John (Dr. John P. 
AVilliamson) who led them in the burning revival 
scenes in the prison-camp at Fort Snelling in 1863. 
-And as he referred to those thrilling times, their tears 
flowed like rain. It is said that Indians cannot weep, 
but scores of them we])t that day at Ascension. One 
of the officiating elders was a son of the notorious 
chieftain IJttlc Crow, who was so ])rominent against 
the Anglo-Saxons in those days of carnage. As we 
partook of those visible symbols of our Saviour's brok- 
en body, and shed blood, with this peculiar congrga- 
tion, so recently accustomed to the war-whoojj and the 
scalp-dance, we freely mingled our tears with theirs. 
And as our minds ranged over the vast Dakota field 
anrl as we remembered the thousands of Christian 
Sioux, their Presbytery and their Association, their 
scores of churches and their many Sabbath Schools, 
dieir Y. M. C. A. and their Y. P. S. C. E. associations, 
their missionary societies and other beneficent organi- 
zations, their farms and homes, their present pure, hap- 
py condiiion, and contrasted it with their former su- 
perstition, nnkedness and filthy teeoee lit*'-, \\q sang 
jo} fully ; 

Pcho;-:! W h'lt wondrous works 

iTave, b\- the Lord, b'-en wrought; 
Behold ! What precious souls 

Have, by His blood, been bought. 

.'\s ibc hades of evening 'Ire", on, liie different 
bard* ii'.'kl their farewell meetings in their teepees. 
There were sounds of sweet music — jovous ones — ech- 



44 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

oing and re-echoing over the prairies — "He leadeth me, 
r^h i-rcv^ions thought/' "Nearer, nv/ God to thee," 
"Blessed Assurance, Jesus hath given" — until the 
wlicle ^\i\i- blended in one gran. I retrain:— 
"Blest be the tii* that l.'nds 

Oiu- hearts .n Cliristiin love; 
The fellowship of Christian minds 
Is like to that above." 
The Council Tent was in darkness ! The lights 
were out in the teepees. The whole camp was wrap- 
ped in solid slumber. And as we sunk to rest in our 
bed of new-mown hay, we breathed a pra3^er for the 
slumbering Sioux around us ; May the Cloud, by day, 
and the Pillar of Fire, by night, guide the Sioux Na- 
tion through the Red Sea of Savagery, superstition 
and sin to the Promised Land of Christian Civiliza- 
tic'U. 

The Native Missionary Society. 
It is well worth a journey to the land of the Dako- 
tas to witness an anniversary gathering of their Wom- 
an's Misssionary Society. You enter the great Coun- 
cil Tent. It is thronged with these nut-brown women 
of the plains. A matronly woman welcomes you, and 
presides with grace and dignity. A bright and beau- 
tiful young maiden — a graduate of Santee or Good 
Will — controls the organ and sweetly leads the service 
of song. And oh how they do sing ! You cannot un- 
derstand the words, but the airs are familiar. Now it 
is Bishop Coxe's "Latter Day" sung with vim in the 
Indian tongue; 



SOWING AND REAPING. 4S 

• ''We are living, we are dwelling, 

In a grand and awful time; 

In an age on ages telling, 

To be living is sublime." 
And now some sedate matron rises and reads a 
carefully written paper, contrasting their past, vile 
teepee life of ignoble servitude to Satan, with their 
present, pure life of glorious liberty in the. Lord Je- 
sus Christ. And then they sing, so earnestly for they 
are thinking of their pagan sisters of the wild tribes, 
sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, in the 
reeions bevond. The hymn is Draper's ''Missionary 
Chant." 

"Ye Christian heralds, go proclaim 

Salvation through Emmanuel's name ; 

To distant lands the tidings bear 

And plant the Rose of Sharon there." 
And now a lively young lass, neatly attired, comes 
forward and with a fine, clear accent, recites a poem 
01 hope, touching the bright future of their tribe, 
when tbe present generation of young men and maid- 
ens, nourished in Christian homes, educated in Christ- 
ian schools and trained in the Young People's societ- 
ies for efficient service, shall control their tribe, and 
move the great masses of their people upward and 
God-ward, and elevate the Sioux Nation to a lofty 
plane of Christian civilization and culture; and enable 
them to display to the world the rich fruition of 
Christian service. And, by request, their voices ring 
out in song these thrilling words ; 



aC among the SIOUX. 

"Watchman, tell us of the night, 
For the morning seems to dawn; 
Traveller, darkness takes its flight, 
Doubt and terror are withdrawn. 
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease; 
Hie thee, to thy quiet home; 
Traveller, lo, the Prince of Peace, 
Lo, the Son of God is come!" 

Fervent prayers are frequently interspersed in these 
exercises. And oh, what wondrous liberality these 
dark-skinned sisters of the Dakota plains display ! 

How full their hands are with rich gifts, gleaned 
out of their poverty for the treasury of their Saviour- 
ving. For many years, the average annual contribu- 
icns per capita to missoins, by these Sioux sisters, 
nave fully measured up to the standard of tlieir more 
lighly favored Anglo-Saxon sisters of the wealthy 
Presbyterian and Congregational denominations,of 
which they form a humble part. 



Chapter VI. 

It was 1905. From the heights of Sisseton, South 
Dakota, another striking scene met the eye. The great 
triajigiilar Sisseton reserve of one million acres no 
longer exists. Three hundred thousand of its choic- 
est acres are now held in severalty by the fifteen hun- 
dred members of the Sisseton and Wahpetou Band of 
the Dakotas — the '"Leaf Dwellers" of the plains. 
Their homes, their schools, their churches cover the 
prairies. That spire pointing heavenward rises from 
Good Will Church, a commodious, well-furnished edi- 
fice, with windows of stained glass. Within its walls, 
there worship on the Sabbath, scores of dusky Presby- 
terian Christians. The pastor, the Rev. Charles Craw- 
ford, in whose veins there flows the mingled blood of 
the shrewd Scotch fur trader and the savage Sioux, 
lives in that comfortable farm house a few rods distant. 
He has a pastorate that many a white minister might 
covet. Miles to the west, still stands in its grassy 
cove on the coteaux of the prairie, the Church of the 
Ascension, referring not to the ascension of our Lord, 
but to "the going up" of the prairies. On the hill a- 
bovc it, is the cozy home of the pastor emeritus, the 
the Rev. John Raptiste Renville, whose pastorate, in 
point of continuous service, has been the longest in the 
two Dakotas. After a long lifetime of faithful minis- 
trations to the people of his own charge, enfeebled by 
age and disease, he sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, Dec. 



4S AMONG THE SIOUX. 

19, 1904. Doubtless his is a starry crown, richly gem- 
med, in token of the multitude of the souls of his fel- 
low tribesmen, led to the Savior by his tender, faithful 
ministry of a life-time in their midst. Round about 
these two churches cluster half a dozen other congre- 
gations, worshipping in comfortable church homes. 
These form only a part of the 

PRESBYTERY OF DAKOTA. 

The original Presbytery of Dakota was organized 
September 30, 1844, at the mission Home of Dr. Will- 
iamson, at L.ac-qui-Parle, Minnesota. It was organiz- 
ed, by the missionaries, among the Dakotas, for the 
furtherance of their peculiar work. The charter mem- 
bers were three ministers, the Rev. Samuel W. Pond, 
Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M.D., and Rev. Stephen 
R. Riggs and one elder Alexander G. Huggins. It 
was an independent presbytery, and, for fourteen 
years, was not connected wdth any Synod. It was a 
lone presbytery, in a vast region, now covered by a 
dozen Synods and scores of presbyteries. For many 
years, the white and Indian churches that were organ- 
ized in Minnesota, were united in this presbytery and 
wrought harmoniously together. In 1858, the Gener- 
al Assembly of Presbyterian churches (N. S.) invit- 
ed this independent presbytery to unite with her two 
Minnesota Presbyteries and form the Synod of Minne- 
sota which was accomplished. 

Solely on account of the barrier of the language, the 
missionaries and churches among the Dakotas, peti- 
tioned the Synod of Minnesota to organize them into 
a separate presbytery. And the Synod so ordered and 



SOWING AND REAPING. 49 

it was so done, September 30, 1867, just twenty three 
years after the first organization at Lac-qui-Parle. By 
this order, the limits of the Presbytery of Dakota be- 
came the churches and ministers among* the Dakota 
Indians. It is the only Presbytery in existence, with- 
out any geographical boundaries. At present, there 
are seventeen ordained Indian ministers upon the roll 
of this presbytery — workmen of whom neither they 
themselves nor any others have any cause to be asham- 
ed. There are, also, under its care, twenty-eig'ht well- 
organized churches, aggregating more than fifteen 
hundred commtmicants, and eight hundred Sabbath- 
School members. The contributions of these fifteen 
hundred Dakota Presbyterians in 1904, exceedied the 
sum of six thousand dollars for all religious purposes. 

Among the "Dispersed" of the Sioux nation, in 
Manitoba, there is one organized Presbyterian church 
of twenty-five communicant members. It is the 
church of Beulah and is in connection with the Pres- 
byterian church of Canada. 

In all, twenty-one Sioux Indians have been ordained 
to the Presbyterian ministry, by the Presbytery of Da- 
kota. Of these. Artemas Ehnamane, Titus Icaduze, 
Joseph Iron Door, and John Baptiste Renville have all 
passed on, from the beautiful prairies of the Dakotas, 
to the celestial plains of glory. And how warm must 
have been their greeting as they passed through the 
pearly gates of the city, whose builder and maker is 
God. Gideon Pond, Dr. Williamson, Samuel W. 
Pond, Stephen R. Riggs and Robert Hopkins, Mar- 
garet Williamson, Mary Riggs and Aunt Jane and Qth- 



50 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

er faithful missionaries and thousands of redeemed Da- 
kotas,' welcomed them, with glad hozannas, and sweet 
are the songs they sing as the}- walk together, under 
the trees, on the banks of the River of Life. 

The Dakota Congregational association has under its 
care thirteen organized churches, with more than one 
thousand communicants and one thousand Sabbath 
school members. The prominent leaders of its work 
are Alfred L. Riggs D.D., of Santee, Nebraska, and 
Rev. Thomas L. Riggs of Oahe, South Dakota. They 
arc the worthy sous of their famous father, Stephen R. 
Riggs, D.D., one of the heroic pioneers in the Dako- 
ta work. The native ministers are Francis Frazier, 
Edwin Phelps, James Garvie, James Wakutamani and 
Elias Gilbert. This association is a mig'hty factor in 
God's plan, for the upbuilding of the Dakotas, in the 
things that are noble and of good report. 

The Presbyterian and Congregationalists have 
wrought together, side by side, for seventy years, in 
this glorious enterprise. Under their auspices, forty- 
four churches, many schools and other beneficent or- 
ganizations are in efficient operation among these for- 
mer savage dwellers on these plains. 

Seven other natives have, also, been ordained to the 
priesthood in the Episcopal Church, making thirty- 
three in all, who have served their fellow-tribesmen in 
the high and holy office of the Christian ministry. 
There is not a single ordained Romish priest among the 
Sioux Indians. 

'AVatchman, tell us of the night. 
What its signs of promise are." 



SOWING AND REAPING. 51 

Seventy years ago, among the twenty-five thousand 
Sioux Indians in the United States, there was not a 
single churcli. not even one professing Christian. 

They were all polytheistic pagans. There were 
signs of pagan worship about every teepee. It might 
be the medicine sack tied behind the conical wigwam, 
or a yard of broadcloth, floating from the top of a flag- 
pole as a sacrifice to some deity. There was more or 
less idol-worship in all their gatherings. One of the 
simplest forms was the holding of a well-filled pipe at 
arm's length, with the mouth-piece upward, while the 
performers said, "O Lord, take a smoke and have mer- 
cy on me." In the feasts and dances, the forms were 
more elaborate. The Sun-dance continued for days of 
fasting and sacrificial work by the participants. 

Now these signs of pagan worship have almost en- 
tirely disappeared among the Dakotas. These facts 
speak volumes — one in eight of the Dakotas is a Pres- 
byterian. There are two-thirds as many Congrega- 
tionalists, twice as many Episcopalians and twice as 
many Catholics. More than one-half of the Dakotas 
have been baptized in the name of the Triune God 
and thousands of them are professed followers of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Now what has wrought this great change among the 
Dakotas ? It was the power of the Holy Spirit of the 
Lord, vrorking through the means of grace as employ- 
ed and applied by these faithful missionaries. They 
lenoimced heathenism, not because the government so 
ordered, but because thev found that there was no 



52 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Gcxi like Jehovah and Jehovah said, *Thou shalt have 
no other gods before me." Even those who have not 
accepted Christ have generally cast away their idols. 

Now do missions pay? Do Indian missions pay? 
Let the grand work among the Dakotas and its glo- 
rious results be an all sufficient answer. It does pay 
a thousand fold. 

Hear the Christian tribesmen sing the Hymn of the 
Sioux. 

Lift aloft the starry banner, 

Let it wave o'er land and sea ; 
Shout aloud and sing hosanna ! 

Praise the Lord, who set us free ! 
Here we stand amazed and wonder 

Such a happy change to see ; 
The bonds of sin are burst asunder ! 

Praise the Lord who set us free. 
Long we lay in darkness pining, 

Not a ray of hope had we ! 
Now the Gospel Sun is shining: 

Praise the Lord who set us free. 
In one loud and joyful chorus. 

Heart and soul now join will we; 
Salvation's Sun is shining o'er us ! 

Praise the Lord who set us free. * 



PART II. 

SOME SIOUX STORIEHES 



Part II 



CONTENTS 



SOME SIOUX STORIETTES. 

I. The Dead Papoose. — The Maiden's Feast. 

II. Grand Mother Pond. — Oak Grove Mission. 

III. Anpetnzapawin. — A Legend of St Anthony Falls. 

IV. Aiinit Jane — ^the Red Song Woman. 
V. Artemas — the Warrior-Preacher. 

VI. Two Famous Missions — I^ke Harriet and Prairievill6. 

VII. The Prince of Indian Preachers. 

VIII. An Indian Patriarch. 

IX. John — the Beloved of the Sioux Nation. 

X. The Martyrs of Old St. Joe. 



THE DEAD PAPOOSE 

The Tndian mother, when her child dies, does not 
believe that swift angels bear it into the glorious sun- 
shine of the spirit-land; but she has a beautiful dream 
to solace her bereavement. The cruel empty places, 
which everywhere meet the eye of the weeping white 
mother, are unknown to her, for to her tender fancy 
a little spirit-child fills them. 

It is not a rare sight to see a pair of elaborate tiny 
moccasins above a little Indian grave. A mother's 
fingers have embroidered them, a mother's hand has 
hung them there, to help the baby's feet over the long 
rough road that stretches between his father's wig- 
wam and the Great Chief's happy hunting grounds. 

Indians believe that a baby's spirit cannot reach the 
spirit-land until the child, if living, would have been 
old enough and strong enough to walk. Until that 
time the little spirit hovers about its mother. And of- 
ten it grows tired — oh so very tired! So the tendei 
mother carries a papoose's cradle on her back that 
the baby spirit may ride and rest when it will. The 
cradle is filled with the softest feathers, for the spirit 
rests more comfortably upon soft things — liard things- 
bruise it — and all the papoose's old toys dangle from 
the crib, for the dead papoose may love to plav even as 
the living pipoose did. 



THE MAIDENS' FEAST 

Of the many peculiar customs of the Indians in 
the long ago, perhaps the most unique was the annual 
''feast of Maidens." One was given at Fort Ellis, 
Manitoba, some thirty years ago, in a natural amphi- 
theatre, surrounded by groves, fully one thousand feet 
above the Assiniboine River. 

It was observed at a reunion of the Sioux, and of 
the Assiniboines and the Crees, three friendly tribes. 

In his "Indian Boyhood," that brilliant Sioux auth- 
or, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman, great-grandson of 
Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky, that potential friend of 
the missionaries in pioneer days at Lake Calhoun, 
graphically describes it thus : — 

"One bright summer morning, while we were still 
at our meal of jerked buffalo meat, we heard the her- 
ald of the Wahpeton band upon his calico pony as he 
rode round our circle. 

''White Eagle's daughter, the maiden Red Star, in- 
vites ail the maidens of all the tribes to come and par- 
take of her feast. It will be in tlic \\'ahpeton Camp, 
before the sun reaches the middle of the sky. All pure 
maidens are invited. Red Star, also, invites the young 
men to be present, to see that no unworthy maiden 
should join in the feast." 

The herald soon completed the rounds of the differ- 
ent camps, and it was not long before the girls began 
to gather. It was regarded as a semi-sacred feast. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 6i 

It would be desecration for any to attend, who was 
not perfectly virtuous. Hence it was regarded as 
an opportune time for the young men to satisfy them- 
selves as to who were the virtuous maids of the tribe. 

There were apt to be surprises before the end of 
the day. Any young man was permitted to challenge 
any maiden, whom he knew to be untrue. But woe 
to him, who could not prove his case. It meant little 
short^ of death to the man, who endeavored to dis- 
grace a woman without cause. 

From the various camps, the girls came singly or in 
groups, dressed in bright colored calicoes or in heavily 
fringed and beaded buckskin. Their smooth cheeks 
and the center of their glossy hair was touched with 
Vermillion. All brought with them wooden basins to 
eat from. Some who came from a considerable dis- 
tance were mounted upon ponies ; a few for company 
or novelty's sake rode double. 

The maidens' circle was formed about a cone- 
ehaped rock, which stood upon its base. This was 
painted red. Beside it, two new arrows were lightly 
stuck into the ground. This is a sort of altar, to 
^vhich each maiden comes before taking her assigned 
place in the circle, and lightly touches first the stone 
and then the arrows. By this oath, she declares her 
purity. Whenever a girl approaches the altar there 
is a stir among* the spectators and sometimes a rude 
youth would call out; 'Take care! you will overturn 
the rock or pull out the arrows !" 



62 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Immediately behind the maidens' circle is the chap- 
erons' circle. This second circle is almost as interest- 
ing to look at as the inner one. 

The old women watched every movement of their 
respective charges with the utmost concern. There 
was never a more gorgeous assembly of its kind than 
this one. The day was perfect. The Crees, display- 
ing their characteristic horsemanship, came in groups ; 
the Assiniboines with their curious pompadour well 
covored with red paint. The various bands of Sioux 
all carefully observed the traditional peculiarities of 
dress and behavior. 

The whole population of the region had assembled 
and the maidens came shyly into the circle. During 
the simple preparatory rites, there was a stir of excite- 
ment among a group of Wahpeton Sioux young men. 
All the maidens glanced nervously toward the scene 
of the disturbance. Soon a tall youth emerged from 
the throng of spectators and advanced toward the 
circle. With a steady step, he passed by the chaper- 
ons, and approached the maidens' circle. 

At last, he stopped behind a pretty Assiniboine 
maiden of good family and said: 

''I am sorry, but according to custom, you should 
not be here." 

The girl arose in confusion, but she soon recovered 
her control. 

"What do you mean?" she demanded indignantly. 
''Three times you have come to court me, but each 
time I have refused to listen to you. I have turned 
my back upon you. Twice I was with Washtinna. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 63 

She can tell the people that this is true. The third 
time I had gone for water when you intercepted me 
and begged me to stop and listen. I refused because 
I did not know you. My chaperon Makatopawee 
knows I was gone but a few minutes. I never saw 
you anywhere else." 

The young man was unable to answer this unmis- 
takable statement of facts and it became apparent that 
he had sought to revenge himself for her repulse. 

"Woo ! Woo ! Carry him out !" was the order of the 
Chief of the Indian police, and the audacious youth 
was hurried away into the nearest ravine to be chas- 
tised. 

The young woman who had thus established her 
good name returned to the circle and the feast was 
served. The ''maidens' song" was sung, and four 
times they danced in a ring around the altar. 

Each maid, as she departed, took her oath to remain 
pure until she should meet her husband. 



II 

GRANDMOTHER POND. 

Grandmother Pond is one of the rarest spirits, one 
of the loveliest characters in Minnesota. She is the 
last living link between the past and the present — be- 
tween that heroic band of pioneer missionaries who 
came to Minnesota prior to 1844, ^^^ those who join- 
ed the ranks of this glorions missionary sen^ice in 
more recent years. Her life reads like a romance. 

Agnes Carson Johnson Pond is a native of Ohio — 
born at Greenfield in 1825. She was the daughter of 
William Johnson, a physician and surgeon of Chilli- 
cothe, Ohio. By the death of her father she was left 
an orphan at five years of age. Her mother married 
a Avorthy minister of the Associate Reformed Presby- 
ian church, Rev. John McDill. She had superior ed- 
ucational and social advantages and made good use 
of all her opportunities. She was educated at a semi- 
nary at South Hanover, Indiana. There she met her 
future husband. Robert Hopkins. He, as well as she, 
v/as in training for service on mission fields. They 
were married in 1843. He had already been appointed 
as a missionary teacher for the Sioux Indians. The 
young wafe was compelled to make her bridal tour in 
the company of strangers, by boat and stage and pri- 
vate conveyance from Ohio to the then unknown land 
of the upper Mississippi. It required thirty days then, 
instead of thirty hours, as now, to pass from Ohio to 
the Falls of St. Anthony. The bride-groom drove 
his own team from Galena, Illinois, to Fort Snelling. 




(iRA.NDMOTLTKR POM>, 

The Last Living A/fember of the Heroic liand of Pion- 
eer Missionaries to the Dakotas, in the 8ist 
Year of Her Age. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 65 

HER HtJSBAND DROWNED. 

Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins were first stationed at Lac- 
qui-Parle. After one year they were transferred to 
Traverse des Sioux, near the present site of Sf. Peter, 
Minnesota. Here they gave seven years of the most 
faithful, devoted, self-sacrificing toil for the lost and 
degraded savages around them. They built a humble 
home and established and maintained a mission school. 
Five children were born to them there. Two of these 
were early called to the celestial home on high. Their 
life at Traverse des Sioux was a strenuous, isolated, 
but a fruitful and happy one. It was destined, how- 
ever, to a speedy and tragic end. 

Early in the morning of July 4, 185 1, Mr. Hopkins 
entered the river for a bath. He was never seen alive 
again. A treacherous swirl in the water at that point 
suddenly carried him to his death. His wife waited 
long the carefully prepared morning meal, but her be- 
loved came not again. He went up through the great 
flood of waters from arduous service on the banks of 
the beautiful Minnesota to his glorious rev/ards on 
the banks of the still more beautiful River of Life. 

Broken-hearted, the young wife, only twenty-six 
years of age, laid him to rest on the banks of the river 
whose treacherous waves had robbed her of her life 
companion. Sadly she closed her home in Minneso- 
ta and, with her three little fatherless children, re- 
turned to her old home in far-distant Ohio. 

Rev. Robert Hopkins enjoyed the full confidence of 
his colleagues and was greatly beloved by the Indians. 
His untimely death was an irreparable loss to the mis- 
sion work amonof the Sioux. 



/)6 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

SFCOND r.RTDAL TOUR TO THE WEST. 

Shortly after the tragedy at Traverse des Sioux, 
Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond, wife of Rev. Gideon H. Pond, 
died at Oak Grove Mission of consumption. In 1854 
]\Jr. Pond visited Ohio, where he and ]\Irs. Hopkins 
were united in marriage. She made a second bridal 
tcur from Ohio to Minnesota, and toiled by his side 
till his death in 1S78. 

In every relation in life in which she has been 
placed, Mrs. Pond has excelled. While she long- ago 
ceased from active service in mission fields, she ever 
has been, and still is untiring in her efforts to do good 
to all as she has opportunity. She is strong- and vig- 
orous at the age of eighty. She still resides at the 
Oak Cirove ]\Iission house, her home since 1857, uni- 
versally beloved and regarded as the best woman in the 
world 1)v about one hundred descendants. 




John P. Williamson, D. D., 
Superintendent of Presb\terian Sioux Missions. For- 
tv-five years a missionary to the Sioux. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 67 

OAK GROVE MISSION HOUSE. 

This old land mark is located in Hennepin County, 
Minnesota, twelve miles southwest of Minneapolis. 
Here in 1843, Gilbert H. Pond established his head- 
quarters as a missionary to the Sioux Indians. He 
erected a large log building in which he resided, 
taught school and preached the gospel. Here, in 1848; 
the Presbytery of Dakota convened, and ordained Mr. 
Pond and Robert Hopkins to the Presbyterian minis- 
try. For many years it was the sole source of social, 
moral, and spiritual light for a wide region for both 
races. It was also the favorite gathering place of 
the Indians for sport. In 1852, a great game of ball 
was played here. Good Road and Grey Iron joined 
their followers with Cloudman's band of Lake Cal- 
houn in opposition to Little Six and his band from 
Shakopay. Tw^o hundred and fifty men and boys par- 
ticipated in the game, while two hundred and fift^• 
others were deeply interested spectators. The game 
lasted for three days and was won by Cloudman and 
his allies. Forty-six hundred dollars in ponies, blank- 
ets and other such property changed hands on the re- 
sults. 

In 1856, the present commodious residence was e- 
rected of brick manufactured on the premises. For 
twenty-one years it was the residence of Rev. Gideon 
Hollister Pond. He was for twenty .vears, also, pas- 
tor of the white Presbyterian church of Oak Grove 
He was a member of the first territorial legislature: 
the editor of the "The Dakota Friend" the first re- 



tvS AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Hgious journal pnb.lished in the state, and he was also 
the first preacher of the gospel in the city of Minne- 
apolis. 

In whatever position he was placed in life, he ever 
proved himself to be a wise, conscientious, consecrated 
Christian gentleman. "None knew him, but to love 
him ; none knew him, but to praise. He was boni in 
Connecticut, June thirtieth, 1810, and on the twentieth 
of January, 1878, he passed from his Oak Grove Mis- 
sion Home through the gates of the celestial city, to 
go no more out. They laid him to rest in the midst 
of the people, whom he had loved and served so well 
for four and forty years and by whom he was univers- 
ally beloved and admired. None were more sincere in 
their demonstrations of sorrow than the little company 
of Dakotas to whom he had been a more than father. 



Ill 

ANPETUSAPAWIN 

A Legend of St. Anthotiy Falls 

Long ere the white man's bark had seen 
These flower-decked prairies^ fair and wide, 
Long ere the white man's bark had been 
Borne on the Mississippi's tick, 
So long ago, Dakotas say, 
Anpetiisapawin was born, 
Her eyes behekl these scenes so gay 
First opening on life's rosv morn. 

— S. W. Pond. 

In the long ago, a young Indian brave espoused as 
his wife this Indian maiden of whom the poet sing-s. 
AVith her he lived happily for a few A-ears, in the en- 
joyment of ever}' comfort of which a savage life is 
capable. To crown their happiness, they were bless- 
ed with two lovely cliildren on whom they doted. 
During this time, by a dint of activi(ty and persever- 
ance in the chase, he became signalized in an eminent 
degree as a hunter, having met with unrivaled success 
in the pursuit and capture of the wild denizens of the 
forest. This circumstance contributed to raise him 
high in the estimation of his fellow savages and drew 
a crowd of admiring friends around. This operated 
as a spur to his ambitions. 

At length some of his newl\' acquired friends sug- 
gested to him the propriety of taking another wife, as 
it would be impossible for one woman to manage the 
afl^airs of his household and properly wait upon the 



;o AMONG THE SIOUX. 

many guests his rising importance would call to visit 
him. They intimated to him that in all probability he 
would soon be elevated to the chieftainship. His van- 
ity was fired by the suggestion. He yielded readily 
and accepted a wife they had already selected for him. 

After his second marriage, he sought to take his 
new wife home and reconcile his first wife to the match 
in the most delicate manner possible. To this end he 
returned to his first wife, as yet ignorant of what had 
occurred, and endeavored, by dissimulation, to secure 
her approval. . 

"You know," said he, "1 can love no one" as I love 
you; yet I see your labors are too great for your pow- 
ers of endurance. Your duties are daily becom.ing 
more and more numerous and burdensome. This 
grieves me sorely. But I know of only one remedy by 
which you can be relieved. These considerations con- 
strain me to take another wife. This wife shall be 
under your control in every respect and ever second to 
you in my afll-ections." She listened to his narrative in 
painful anxiety and endeavored to reclaim him from 
his wicked purpose, refuting all his sophistry bv 
expressions of her unaffected conjugal affection. He 
left her to meditate. She became more industrious 
and treated him more tenderly than before. She tried 
ever}^ means in her power to disuade him from the ex- 
ecution of his vile purpose. She pleaded all the en- 
dearments of their former happy life, the regard he 
had for her happiness and that of the offspring of 
their mutual love to prevail on him to relinquish the 
idea of marrying another wife. He then informed her 



SOWINC^ AND REAPING. 71 

of the fact of his marriage and stated that compHance 
on her part would be actually necessary. She must re- 
ceive the new wife into their home. She was determ- 
ined, however, not to be the passive dupe of his du- 
plicity. With her two children she returned to her pa- 
rental teepee. In the autumn she joined her friends 
and kinsmen in an expedition up the. Mississippi and 
spent the winter in hunting. In the springtime, as 
they were returning, laden wi;th peltries, she and her 
children occupied a canoe by themselves. On nearing 
the Falls of St. Anthony she lingered in the rear till 
the others had landed a little above the falls. 

She then pain.ted heirself and children, paddled her 
canoe into the swift current of the rapids and began 
chanting her death song, in which she recounted her 
former happy life, with her husband, when she enjoyed 
his undivided affection, and the wretchedness in which 
i"he was now involved by his infidelity. Her friends, 
alarmed at her imminent peril, ran to the shore and 
begged her to paddle out of the current before it was 
too late, while her parents, rending their clothing and 
tearing their hair, besought her to come to their arms 
of love ; but all in vain. Her wretchedness was com- 
plete and must terminate with her existence! She 
continued her course till her canoe was borne head- 
long down the roaring cataract, and it and the deserted, 
heartbroken wife and the beautiful and innocent chil- 
dren, were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. No 
traces of the canoe or its occupants were found. Her 
brothers avenged her death by slaying the treacherous 
husband of the deserted wife. 

They say that still that song is heard 
Above the mighty torrent's roar, 

When trees are by the night-wind stirred 

And darkness broods on stream and shore. 



IV 

AUNT JANE 

The Red Song Woman 

Miss Jane Smith Williamson, the subject of this 
sketch, was one of the famous missionary women in 
our land in the nineteenth century. She was widely 
known among both whites and Indians as "Aunt Jane." 
The Dakotas also called her ''Red Song Woman." 
She was born at Fair Foresit, South Carolina, March 8, 
1803. Through her father she was a lineal descend- 
ant of the Rev. John Newton and Sir Isaac Newton. 
Her father was a revolutionary soldier. 

Her mother was Jane T Smith) Williamson. They 
believed that negroes had souls and therefore treated 
the twenty-seven slaves they^had inherited like human 
beings. Her mother was fined in South Carolina, for 
teaching her slaves to read the Bible. Consequently, 
in 1804, in her early infancy, her parents emigrated 
to Adams county, Ohio, in order to be able to free 
their slaves and teach them to read the Word of God 
and write legibly. 

The storv of Aunt Jane's life naturally falls into 
three divisions. 

I PREPARATION FOR HER GREAT LIFE WORK. 

This covered forty years. She grew up in an atmos- 
phere of sincere and deep piety and of devotion to 
Christian principles. Her early educational advanta- 
o-es were necessarily limited, but she made the most of 
Ihem. She became very accurate in the use of Ian- 




AUNT JANE, 
Or, The Ked Song Woman. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 73 

giiage, wrote a clear round hand and was very thor- 
ough in everything she studied. She was a great 
reader of good and useful books, possessed an excel- 
lent memory and a lively imagination and very early 
acquired a most interesting style of composition. 

From her ancestors she inherited that strong sym- 
pathy for the colored race, which was a marked char- 
acteristic of her whole life. In her young womanhood, 
she taught private schools in Adams county, Ohio. 
The progress made by her pupils was very rapid and 
her instruction was of a high order. She sought out 
the children of the poor and taught them without 
charge. She admitted colored pupils as well as whites. 
For this cause, many threats of violence were made a- 
gainst her school. But she was such an excellent teach- 
er that her white pupils remained with her ; and a 
guard of volunteer riflemen frequently surrounded her 
school house. She calmly oursued the even tenor of 
her way. 

In 1820, when she was oniy 17 years of age, she and 
her brother rode on horseback all the way from Man- 
chester, Ohio^ to .South Carolina and back again, and 
brought with them two slaves they had inherited. 
They could have sold them in the • South for $300 
each, and stood in great need of the money ; but in- 
stead, they gave to these two poor colored persons the 
priceless boon of liberty. Miss Williamson's slave 
was a young woman of her own age, called Jemima. 
She was married to another slave named Logan. She 
was the mother of two children. Logan was a daring 
man, and rendered desperate by the loss of his young 



7! AMONG THE SIOUX. 

wife, he determined tc be free and folloAv her. He fled 
from South Carolina, and after passing through many 
adventures of the most thrilling character, he found 
liis wife in Ohio, and lived and died a free man. He 
was fully determined to die rather than return to 
slavery. Jemima lived to a great age, surviving her 
husband, who was killed accidcntly in the fifties. 
They left a family highly respected. 

During all these years ''Aunt Jane" was a very act- 
ive worker in Sabbath schools, prayer meetings and 
missionary societies. In her own day schools, she 
made religious worship and Bible study a prominent 
feature of the exercises. In 1835, when her brother. 
Dr. Williamson, went as a missionary to the Dakotas, 
she strongly desired to accompany him. But her duty 
required her to remain at home and care for her aged 
father, who died in 1839, at the age of yy. She did 
not join her brother, however, until 1843, ^t the age 
of forty. 

II — HER WORK AMONG THE DAKOTAS. 

This covers one-third of a century. The missionary 
spirit was a part of her life, — born with her, — a herit- 
age of several generations. The blood of the Newtons 
flowed in her veins. When she arrived in Minnesota, 
she went to work without delay and with great energy 
and with untiring industry greatly -beyond her 
strength. She was very familiar with the Bible. 
She taught hundreds of Indians, perhaps fully one 
thousand, to read the Word of God, and the greater 
part of them tc write a legible letter. She visited all 



SOWING AND REAPING. 75 

the sick within her reach, and devoted much of her 
time to instructing the Dakota women in domestic du- 
ties. She conducted prayer meetings and conversed 
with them in reference to the salvation of their souls. 
Many of them, saved by the Holy Spirit's benediction 
upon her self-denying efforts, are now shining like 
bright gems in her crown of glory on high. 

Lac-qui- Parle, — the Lake-that-speaks, — ^two hun- 
dred miles west of St. Paul, was her first missionary 
home. There she gathered the young Indians togeth- 
er and taught them as opportunity offered. The in- 
struction of the youth — especially the children, of 
whom she was ever a devoted lover, was her great de- 
light. 

It was more than a year before any mail reached her 
at this remote outpost. She was absent in the Indian 
village when she heard of the arrival of her first mail. 
She. in her eagerness to hear from her friends in Ohio, 
ran like a young woman to her brother's house. She 
found the mail in the stove-oven. The carrier had 
brought it through the ice, and it had to be thawed 
out. That mail contained more than fifty letters for 
Iitr and the postage on them was over five dollars In 
1846, she removed with her brother to Kaposia, Little 
Crow's village (now South St. Paul), and in 1852 to 
Yellow Medicine, thirty-two miles south of Lac-qui- 
Parle. The privations of the missionaries were very 
great. White bread was more of a luxury to them 
then, than rich cake ordinarily is now. Their houses 
and furnishings were of the rudest kind. Their en- 
vironments were all of a savage character. 



y6 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Their trials were many and sore, extreme scarcity 
of food in mid-winter, savage threats and bitter in- 
snks. Thev were ''in journeying-s often, in perils of 
waters, of robbers, by the heathen and in the wilder- 
ness." All this she endured contentedly for Christ's 
sake and the souls of the poor ignorant savages around 
for the evangelization and salvation of the degraded 
Dakotas, — lost in sin. 

She possessed great tact and was absolutely fearless. 
In 1857. during the Inkpadoota trouble, the father of 
a young Indian, who had been wounded by the soldiers 
of Sherman's battery, came with his gun to the mis- 
sion house to kill her brother. Aunt Jane met him 
with a plate of food for himself and an ofifer to send 
some nice dishes to the wounded young man. This 
vv^as effectual. The savage was tamed. He ate the 
food and afterwards came with his son to give them 
thanks. Scarcely was the prison-camp, with nearly 
four hundred Dakota prisoners, three-fourths of them 
condemned to be hanged, established at Mankato, 
^/hen Aunt Jane and her brother came to distribute 
paper and pencils and some books among them. 

When their lives were imix^rilled, by their savage 
pursuers, during the terrible massacre^ Aunt Jane 
calmly said ; "Well if they kill me, my home is in 
Heaven." The churches were scattered, the work ap- 
parently destroyed, but nothing could discourage 
Aunt Jane. She had, in the midst of this great trag- 
edy, the satisfactory knowledge that all the Christian 
Sioux had continued at the risk of their own lives, 
steadfast in their lovaltv, and had been instrumental in 



SOWING AND REAPING. -jj 

saving the lives of many whites. They had, also, in- 
fluenced for g-ood many of their own race. 

TIT — TTiE CrX)SING YEARS OF HER LIFE. 

After that terrible massacre the way never opened 
for her to resume her residence among the Dakotas ; 
but she was given health and strength for nineteen 
years more toil for the Master and her beloved Indians. 
Her home was with her brother, Dr. Williamson, 
near St. Peter, until his death in 1879, and she re- 
mained, in his old home several years after his death. 
During this period, slie accomplished much for the 
education of the Indians around her and she kept up 
an extensive and helpful correspondence with native 
Christian workers. All the time she kept up the work 
of self-sacrifice for the good of others. In 1881 she 
met a poor Indian woman, su fife ring extremely from 
intense cold. She slipped ofif her own warm skirt and 
gave it to the woman. The result was a severe illness, 
which caused her partial paralysis and total blindness 
from which she never recovered. In 1888 she handed 
the writer a $5 gold coin for the work among the 
ireedmen with this remark: '* First the f reedman ; 
then the Indian." Out of a narrow income she con- 
stantly gave generously to the 'boards of the church 
and to the poor around her. She spent most of her 
patrimony in giving and lending to needy ones. 

The closing years of her life were spent with her 
nephew the great Indian missionary the Rev. John P. 
Williamson D.D. at Greenwood, South Dakota. There 
at noon of March 24, 1895, the light of eternity dawn- 



; 8 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

ed upon her and she entered into that sabbattic rest, 
which remains for the people of God. Such is the 
stors' of Aunt Jane, modest and unassuming — a real 
heroine,, who travelled sixteen hundred miles all the 
way on horseback and spent several months that she 
might rescue two poor colored persons whom she had 
never seen or even known. 

Without husband or children, alone in the world, 
she did not repine, but made herself useful, wherever 
she was, in teaching secular learning and religiou.s 
truth, and in ministering to the sick and afflicted, the 
down-trodden and oppressed. She never sought to d^- 
any wonderful things, — but whatever her ^hand found 
to do, she did it with her might and with an eye to the 
honor and glory of God. Hers was a very long and 
most complete Christian life. Should it ever be for- 
gotten? Certainly not. while our Christian religion 
endures. 

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
from their labors and their works do follow them." 

— Rev. 14: 13. 



ARTEMAS, THE WARRIOR PREACHER 

He was one of the fiercest of the Sioux warriors. 
He fought the Ojibways in his youth ; danced the 
scalp-dance on the present site of MinneapoHs, and 
waged war against the whites in '62. He was convert- 
ed at Mankato, Minnesota, in the prison-pen, and for 
thirty-two years, he was pastor of the Pilgrim Congre- 
gational church at Santee, Nebraska. 

Artemas Ehnamane was born in 1825, at Red Wing, 
Minnesota, by the mountain that stands sentinel at the 
head of Lake Pepin. ''Walking Along" is the Eng- 
lish translation of his jaw-breaking surname. As a 
lad, he played on the banks of the mighty Mississip- 
pi. As a youth, he hunted the red deer in the lovely 
glades of Minnesota and Wisconsin. He soon grew 
tall and strong and became a famous hunter. The 
war-path, also, opened to him in the pursuit of his he- 
reditary foes, the Chippewas. He danced the scalp- 
dance on the present site of Minneapolis, when it was 
only a wind-swept prairie. 

While in his youth, his tribe ceded their ancestral 
lands along the Mississippi and removed to the Sioux 
Reservation on the Minnesota River. But not for 
long, for the terrible outbreak of 1862, scattered ev- 
erything and landed all the leading men of that tribe 
in prison. Artemas was one of them. He was con- 
victed, condemned to death, and pardoned by Abra- 
ham Lincoln. While in the prison-pen at Mankato, 



Su AMONG THE SIOUX. 

he came into a new life ''that thinketh no evil of his 
neighbor." The words of the faithful missionaries, 
Pond and Williamson and Riggs, sank deep into his 
heart. His whole nature underwent a change. Arte- 
mas once explained his conversion thus : 

. *'We had planned that uprising wisely and secretly. 
We had able leaders. We were well organized and 
thoroughly armed. The whites were weakened by the 
Southern war. Everything was in our favor. We 
had prayed to our gods. But when the conflict came, 
we wTre beaten so rapidly and completely, I felt tlliat 
the white man's God must be greater than all the In- 
dians' gods ; and I detemiined to look Him up, and I 
found Him, All-Powerful and precious to my soul." 

Faithfully he studied his letters and learned his Da- 
kota Bible, which became more precious to him than 
any record of traditions and shadows handed down, 
from mouth tO' mouth by his people. He soon became 
possessed of a great longing to let his tribe know his 
great secret of the God above. So when the j>rison- 
ers were restored to their families in the Missouri Val- 
Iv in Nebraska, Artemas was soon chosen one of the 
preachers of the reorganized tribe. His first pastorate 
was that of the Pilgrim Congregational Church at 
Santee, Nebraska, in 1867. It was also his last, for 
he was ever so beloved and honored by his people, that 
they would not consider any proposal for separation. 

No such proposition ever met with favor in the Pil- 
grim Church for Artemas finnly held first place in the 
affections of the people among whom he labored so 
earnestlv. He served this church for thirtv-two vcars 



SOWING AND REAPING. 8i 

and passed on to take his place among the Shining 
Ones, on the eve of Easter Sabbath, 1902. 

Artemas seldom took a vacation. In fact there is 
only one on record. In 1872, his church voted a va- 
cation of six weeks. True to his Indian nature, he 
planned a deer hunt. He turned his footsteps to 
the wilds of the Running Water (Niobrara River), 
where his heart grew young and his rifle cracked the 
death-knell of the deer and antelope. One evening, 
in the track of the hostile Sioux and Pawnees, he 
found himself near a camp of the savage Sicaugu. He 
was weak and alone. They were strong and hostile. 

He had tact as well as courage. He invited those 
savage warriors to a feast. His kettle was brimming, 
and as the Indians filled their mouths with the savory 
meat, he filled their ears with the story of the gospel, 
and gave them their first view of that eternal life, 
purchased by the blood of Christ. 

The deer-hunt became a soul-hunt. The wild Si- 
caugu grunted their amicable "Hao" as they left his 
teepee, their mouths filled with venison and their hearts 
planted with the seeds of eternal truth. 

Again he went on a deer-hunt, when he crossed an- 
other trail, that of hunters from another hostile tribe. 
In the camp he found a sick child, the son of Sam- 
uel Heart, a Yankton Sioux. But let Heart tell the 
story himself in his simple way: 

"I was many days travel away in the wilderness. 
My child was very sick. I felt much troubled. A 
man of God came to my tent. I remember all he said. 
He told me not to be troubled, but to trust in God, and 



82 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

all would be well. He prayed; he asked God to 
strengthen the child so I could bring him home. God 
heard him. My child lived to get home. Once my 
heart would have been very sad, and I would have 
done something very wicked. I look forward and 
trust Jesus." 

This is how Rev. Artemas Ehnamane spent his va- 
cations, hunting for wild souls instead of wild deer. 

He was a scriptural, personal and powerful preach- 
er. 

Faith in a risen Saviour, was the keynote of his 
ministry. As he said: "Who of all the Saviours of 
the Indian people has risen from the dead? Not one." 
"Our fathers told us many things and gave us many 
customs, but they were not true." "I ^ grew up be- 
lieving in what my father taught me, but when I knew 
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I believed in Him 
and put aside all my ways." It was to him in truth, 
the coming out of darkness into light. "Sins are like 
wolves," he said. "They abound in the darkness and 
destroy men. When we enter the way, Jesus watch- 
es over us. Be awake and follow Him. All over the 
world men are beginning to follow Christ. The day 
is here." "Repent, believe, obey." 

He loved to sing : 

"Saved, by grace, alone; 
That is all my plea; 
Jesus died for all mankind; 
Jesus died for me." 



SOWING ANU REAPING. s^ 

The twenty grand-children of the old Sioux all of 

school age — are diligently prosecuting their studies in 
order to be prepared to meet the changed conditions 
which civiHzation has made possible for the Indians. 
One of his grand-sons is a physician now, in a fair 
practice among his own people. 

This man President Lincoln wisely pardoned, know- 
ing full well what a great influence for good such a 
man could wield over his turbulent people. And the 
President was not disappointed. One of his sons has 
been a missionary among the Swift Bear tribe at the 
Rose Bud Agency for twenty years; another son has 
been a missionary at Standing Rock, on the Grand 
River, and is now pastor of an Indian congregation on 
Basile Creek, Nebraska, and is also an important- lead- 
er of his tribe. The Rev. Francis Frazier, one of his 
sons, was installed September lo, 1902, as his father's 
successor in the pastorate of Pilgrim church at Santee. 

His married daughter is also very earnest in the 
woman's work in the church. Seventy-seven years of 
age at his death. Rev. Artemas Ehnamane had filled 
to overflowing with good deeds to offset the first half, 
when he fought against the encroachments of the 
whites and the advance of civilization with as much 
zeal as later he evinced in his religious and beneficent 
life. Abraham Lincoln pardoned Ehnamane and the 
uld warrior never forgot it. But it was another pard- 
on he prized more highly than that. It was this pard- 
on he preached and died believing. 



VI 

TWO FAMOUS MISSIONS. 

Lake Harriet and Prairieville 

In the spring of 1835, the Rev. Jedediah Dwight 
Stevens, of the Presb3'terian Church, arrived at Fort 
SnelHng under the auspices of the American Board of 
^Missions. He estabHshed a station on the northwest- 
ern shore of Lake Harriet. It was a most beautiful 
spot, west of the Lrdian village, presided over by that 
friendly and influencial chieftain Cloudman or Man- 
of-the-sky. He erected two buildings — the mission- 
home, first residence for white settlers, and the school 
house — the first building erected exclusively for school 
purposes within the present boundaries of the State 
of Minnesota. 

\\^ithin a few rods of the Pavilion, where on the 
Sabbath, multitudes gather for recreation, and dese- 
cration of God's holy day, is the site, where, in 1835, 
the first systematic effort was made to educate and 
Christianize Dakota Indians. It is near the present 
junction of Fortv-second Street, and Queen Avenue. 
(Linden Hills). ' 

In July, Mr. Stevens, and his interesting family, 
took possession of the mission house. With the co-op- 
eration of the Pond brothers, this mission was prose- 
cuted with a fair measure of success till the removal of 
the Indians farther west, in 1839, when it was aband- 
oned, and the connection of Mr. Stevens with the work 
of the Dakota mission ceased. 

Here on the evening of November 22, 1838, a ro- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 85 

mantic wedding- was solemnized by Rev. J. D. Stevens. 
The ^room was Samuel Pond of the Dakota mission. 
The groomsman was Henry H. Sibley, destined in af- 
ter years to be Minnesota's first delegate to Congress, 
her first state executive, and in the trying times of '62, 
the victorious General Sibley. The bride was Mis'? 
Cordelia Eggleston ; the bridesmaid, Miss Cornelia Ste- 
vens ; both amiable, lovely and remarkably handsome. 

It was a brilliant, starry evening, one of Minnesota's 
brightest and most invigorating. The sleighing was 
fine, and among the guests, were many officers, from 
Fort Snellino-, with their wives. Dr. • Emerson and 
wife, the owners of Dred Scott, the subject of Judge 
Taney's infamous decision, were present. The doctor 
was, then, post-surgeon at the fort, and the slave Dred, 
was his body-servant The tall bridegroom and 
groomsman, in the vigor and strength of their young 
manhood; the bride and bridesmaid, just emerging- 
from girlhood, with all their dazzling beauty, the offi- 
cers in the brilliant uniforms^ and their wives, in their 
gay attire, must have formed an attractive picture in 
the long ago. After the wedding festivities, the 
guests from the fort were imprisoned at the mission 
for the night, by a blizzard, which swept over the icy 
face of Lake Harriet. 

In the previous November, at Lac-qui-Pkrle, the 
younger brother was united in marriage to Miss Sarah 
Poage, by the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs. It was a 
unique gathering. The guests were all the dark- 
faced dw^ellers of the Indian village, making a novel 
group of whites, half-breeds and savage Indians. 



f'6 AMONG THE SIOl^X. 

Man\ of ilie latter wore poor, inaimod, halt aiul blind, 
who thoroughly enjoyed the feast of potatoes, turnips, 
and baeon so generouslv provided by the happy bride- 
groom. 

PRAIRIEVILLE. 

In 1846, Shakpe or Little Six, extende<l an urgent 
invitation to Samuel Pond to establish a mission at 
Tintonwan — **the village on the prairies" — for the 
benefit of his people. He was ehief of one of the 
most turbulent bands of Indians in the valley of th.e 
Minnesota. He was a man of marked ability and one 
of the ablest and most etfective orators in the whole 
Dakota nation, "^'et withal, Shakpe w^s a petty thief, 
had a "forked tongue," a violent temper, was excit- 
able, and vindictive in his revenge. These character- 
istics led him to the scaffold. He was hanged at Fort 
Snelling, in 1863 for participation in the bloody mass- 
acre of '62. He and his followers were so noted for 
iheir deception and treachery, that Mr. Pond doubted 
their sincerity and the wisdom of accepting- their in- 
vitation. But after weeks of prayeful deliberation, he 
r.ccepted and began preparations for a pennanent es- 
tablishment at that point. He erected a commodious 
and substantial residence into which he removed, with 
his household, in November 1847. 

This station,, which Mr. Pond called Prairieville, 
was fourteen miles soutlieast of Oak Grove mission, on 
the present site of Shakopee. The mission home w^s 
pleasantly located on gently rising ground, half a mile 
^outh of the Minnesota River. It was surrounded by 
ilie teepees of six hundred noisy savaqvs. Here. -for 



SOWING AND REAPING. 87 

several years they toiled unceasingly for the welfare 
of the wild men, by whom they were surrounded. 

In 185 1, Mr. and Mrs. Pond were compelled, by 
her rapidly failing- health, to spend a year in the east. 
She never returned. She died February 6, 1852, at 
Washington, Connecticut. Thus after fourteen years 
of arduous missionary toil, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, 
the beautiful bride of the Lake Harriet mission house, 
was called from service to reward at the early age of 
thirty-six. 

Mr. Pond returned to Prairieville and toiled on for 
the Indians until their removal by the government, in 
1853. He himself, remained and continued his labors 
for the benefit of the white community of Shakopee, 
v/hich had grown up around him. In 1853, a white 
Presbyterian church was organized and, in 1856, a 
comfortable church edifice was erected, wholly at the 
expense of the pastor and his people. The congrega- 
tion still exists and the mission house still stands as 
monuments of the wisdom, faith and fortitude of the 
heroic builder. After thirteen years of faithful serv- 
ice, he laid the heavy burdens- down for younger hands, 
but for a quarter of a century longer he remained in 
his old home. 

During these last years, his chief delight was in his 

books, which lost none of their power to interest him 

in advancing age; epecially was this true of the Book 

of books. He was never idle. The active energy, 

which distinguished his youth, no less marked his ad- 



88 SOWING AND REAPING. 

vancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as 
sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, 
as they v/ere at thirty-three. His was a long and hap- 
py old age. He lingered in the house his own hands 
had builded, content to go or stay, till he was trans- 
ferred, December twelfth, 1891, to the house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. 



VII 

THE PRINCE OF INDIAN PREACHERS. 

Without disparagement to any of his brethren in the 
ministry, this title can be properly applied to the Rev. 
John Baptiste Renville, of lyakaptapte, (Ascension) 
South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shin- 
ing ranks of the saved Sioux in glory. 

Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when 
aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent 
in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet 
firm as a rock, when duty demanded it ; a loving hus- 
band, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presby- 
ter — a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner — 
a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man 
was this Indian sen of a Sioux mother, herself the first 
fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith. 

He was the youngest son of Joseph Renville, a mix- 
ed blood Sioux and French, who was a captain in the 
British army in the War of 1812 and the most famous 
Sioux Indian in his day. After the war, he became a 
trader and established his headquarters at Lac-qui- 
Parle, where he induced Dr. Thomas S. Williamson to 
locate his first mission station in 1835. 

John Baptiste was one of the first Indian children 
baptized by Dr. Williamson and he enjoyed the bene- 
fits of the first school among the Sioux. He was rath- 
er delicate, which hindered his being sent east to school 
as much as he otherwise would have been. However, 
he spent several years in excellent white schools, and 




w 

> 
w 

So 

Pi 






^^ 


% 




o< 


ri 






rS 




M 


'5 




G 


Ti* 


* w 


•— I 


o 


i§ 


< 


H 


^ c 




05 


> ^ 




»-l 


z 






w 




^ 


Pi 




Q 


M 




TJ 












Q 


O 








The Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M. D.. 
Fortv-five vears a Missionary to the Sioux. 



90 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

he acquired a fair knowledge of the elementary 
branches of the EngHsh language. The last year he 
spent at Knox College, Galesburgh, Illinois, where he 
wooed and won Miss Mary Butler, an educated Christ- 
ian white woman, whom he married and who became 
his great helper in his educational and evangelistic 
work. 

He was the first Sioux Indian to enter the ministry. 
In the spring of 1865, he was licensed to preach, by 
the presbytery of Dakota, at Mankato, Minnesota, and 
ordained in the following autumn. When he entered 
the ministry, the Sioux Indians were in a very unset- 
tled state, and his labors were very much scattered; 
now with the Indian scouts on some campaign; again 
Avith a few families of Indians gathered about some 
military post, and anon with a little class of Indians, 
who were trying to settle down to civilized life. 

In 1870, he became the pastor of lyakaptapte, (As- 
cension) a little church in what subsequently became 
the Sisseton reservation. Both physically and in men- 
tal and spiritual qualities, he was best adapted to a set- 
tled pastorate. His quiet and unobtrusive character re- 
quired long intercourse to be appreciated. However, 
in the pulpit, his earnestness and apt presentation of 
the truth ever commanded the attention even of 
strangers. Under his ministry, the church increased 
to one hundred and forty members. More than half 
a dozen of them became ministers and Ascension was 
generally the leading church in every good work 
among the Dakota Indians. No one among the Chris- 
tian Sioux was more widclv known and loved than Mr. 



AMONG THE SIOUX. 91 

Renville. In the councils of the church, though there 
were seventeen other ministers in the presbytery before 
his death, he was ever given the first place both for 
counsel and honor. He twice represented his presby- 
tery in the general Assembly, and he was ever faith- 
ful in his attendance at Synod and Presbytery and act- 
ive in the discharge of the duties devolving upon him. 
iMary Butler, the white wife of his youth, died sev- 
eral years ago. Their daughter Ella, a fine Christian 
young lady passed away at twenty years of age. She 
was active in organizing Bands of Hcj.e among the 
chilflren of the tribe. She sleeps, with her parents on 
the brow of lyakaptapte overlooking" the chruch to 
which all their lives were devoted. Josephine, the 
Indian wife of his old age, survives him and remains 
in the white farm house on the prairie in which John 
Baptiste Renville spent so many years of his long, hap- 
py useful life. He died December 19, 1904, in the 
seventy-third year of his age. 



VlII 

AN INDIAN PATRIARCH. 

Chief Cloiidman or Man-of-the-skv, was one of the 
strongest characters among the natives on the head- 
waters of the Mississippi in the earlier half of the nine- 
teenth century. He was one of the leading chiefs of 
t-he Santee band of Sioux Indians. He was born about 
1780. He was brave in battle, wise in council, and 
possessed many other noble qualities, which caused 
him to rise far above his fellow chieftains. He pos- 
sessed a large fund of common sense. Years prior to 
the advent of the white man in this region, he regarded 
hunting and fishing as a too precarious means to a live- 
lihood, and attempted to teach his people agriculture 
and succeeded to a limited extent. 

It was a strange circumstance that prompted the 
chief to this wise action. On a hunting tour in the 
Red River ccuntr}-, with a part of his band, they were 
overtaken by a drifting storm and remained, for sev- 
eral days, under the snow, without any food whatso- 
ever. While buried in those drifts, he resolved to rely, 
in part, upon agriculture, for subsistence, if he escaped 
alive, and he carried out his resolution, after the im- 
mediate peril was passed. His band cultivated small 
fields of quickly maturing corn, which had been intro- 
duced by their chief in the early 30's. He was respect- 
ed and loved by his people and quite well obeyed. 

Before the coming of the missionaries he taught and 
enforced, by his example, this principle, namely, that 




REV. JOHN EASTMAN. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 



93 



it as wrong to kill non-combatants, or to kill under any 
circumstances in time of peace. He favored peace 
rather than war. He was twenty-five years of age, 
and had six notches on the handle of his tomahawk, in- 
dicating t'hat he had slain half a dozen of his O jib way 
foes before he adopted this human policy. 

His own band lived on the shores of Lakes Calhoun 
and Harriet, within the present limits of Minneapo- 
On the present site of lovely Lakewood — Minneapo- 
lis' most fashionable cemetery — was his village of sev- 
eral hundred savages, and also an Indian burial place. 
This village was the front guard against the war part- 
ies of the O jib ways — feudal enemies of the Sioux — but 
finally as their young men were killed off in battle, 
they were compelled to remove and join their people 
on the banks of the Minnesota and farther West. He 
located his greatly reduced band at Bloomington, di- 
rectly west of his original village. This removal oc- 
curred prior to 1838. 

He was never hostile to the approach of civilization, 
or blind to the blessings it might confer on his people. 

He was one of the first of his tribe to accept the 
white man's ways and to urge his band to follow his 
example. This fact is confirmed by the great progress 
his descendants have made. 

He was the first Sioux Indian of any note to welcome 
those first pioneer missionaries, the Pond brothers. As 
early as 1834 he encouraged them to erect their home 
and inaugurate their work in his village. In all the 
treaties formed between the government and the Sioux, 
he was ever the ready and able advocate of the white 



94 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

man's cause. He threw all the weight of his power- 
ful influence in favor of cession to the United States 
government of the military reservation on which Fort 
Snelling now stands. He died at Fort Snelling in 
1863, ^^'^ was buried on the banks of the Minnesota in 
view of the fort. 

He was the father of seven children, all of whom are 
dead, except his son David Weston, his successor in 
the chieftainship, who still lives at Flandreau, South 
Dakota, at the age of seventy-eight years. He was for 
many years a catechist of the Episcopal Church. His 
two daughters were called Hushes-the-Night and 
Stands-like-a-Spirit. They were once the belles of 
Lake Harriet, to whom the officers and fur traders 
paid homage. Hushes-the-Night married a white man 
named Lamont and became the mother of a child call- 
ed Jane. She had one sister, who died childless, in 
St. Paul, in 1901. Jane Lamont married Star Titus, 
a nephew of the Pond brothers. They became the par- 
ents of three sons and two daughters. Two of these 
sons are bankers and rank among the best business 
men of North Dakota. They are recognized as lead- 
ers among the whites. The other son is a farmer near 
Tracy, Minnesota. Stands-Like-a-Spirit was the moth- 
er of one daughter, Mary Nancy Eastman, whose fath- 
er, Captain Seth Eastman, was stationed at Fort Snell- 
ing — 1830-36. Mary Nancy married Many Light- 
nings, a fullblood, one of the leaders of the Wahpe- 
ton- Sioux. They became the parents of four sons and 
one daughter. After Many Lightnings became a 
Christian, he took his wife's name, Eastman, instead of 



SOWING AND REAPING. 95 

his own, and gave all his children English names. 
John, the eldest, and Charles Alexander, the youngest 
son, have made this branch of the Cloudman family 
widely and favorably known. 

John Eastman, at twenty-six years of age, became a 
Presbyterian minister, and for more. than a quarter of 
a century has been the successful pastor of the First 
Presbyterian church of Flandreau, South Dakota. He 
was for many years a trusty Indian agent at that place. 
He is a strong factor in Indian policy and politics. 
He has had a scanty English education in books, but 
he has secured an excellent training, chiefly by ming- 
ling with cultured white people. 

His proud statement once was; "every adult mem- 
ber of the Flandreau band is a professing Christian, 
and every child of school age is in school." During 
the '"Ghost Dance War," in 1890, his band remained 
quietly at home, busy about their affairs. In the 
spring of 1891, they divided $40,000 among them- 
selves. 

Charles Alexander Eastman was born in 1858, in 
Minnesota, the ancestral home of the Sioux, and pass- 
ed the first fifteen years of his life in the heart of the 
wilds of British America, enjoying to the full, the free, 
nomadic existence of his race. During all this time. 
he lived in a teepee of buffalo skins, subsisted upon 
wild rice and the fruits of the chase, never entered a 
house nor heard the English language spoken, and 
v/as taught to distrust and hate the white man. 

The second period (third) of his life was spent in 
school and college, where after a short apprenticeship 



o6 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

in a mission sciiool, he stood shoulder to shoulder, 
with our own youth, at Beloit, Knox, Dartmouth and 
the Boston university. He is an alumnus of Dartmouth 
of '^y and of Boston University, departmient-of medi- 
cine, of '90. 

During the last fifteen years, he has been a man of 
varied interests and occupations, a physician, mission- 
ary, writer and speaker of wide experience and, for 
the greater part of the time, has held an appointment 
under the government. 

At his birth he was called ^'Hakadah" or "The Piti- 
ful Last," as his mother died shortly after his birth. 
He bore this sad name till years afterwards he was 
called Ohiyesa, "The Winner,'' to commemorate a 
great victory of La Crosse, the Indian's favorite game, 
won by his band, "The Leaf Dwellers," over their 
foes, the Ojibways. When he received this new name, 
the leading medicine man thus exhorted him : "Be 
brave, be patient and thou shalt always win. Thy 
name is "Ohiyesa the Winner." The spirit of his ben- 
ediction seems to follow and rest upon him in his life- 
service. 

His grandmother was "Stands-Like-a-Spirit," the 
second daughter of the old chief Cloudman. His full- 
blooded Sioux father was a remarkable man in many 
ways and his mother, a half-blood woman, was the 
daughter of a well-known army officer. She was the 
most beautiful woman of the "Leaf Dwellers" band. 
By reason of her great beauty, she was called the 
"Demi-Goddess of the Sioux." Save for her luxuri- 
ant, black hair, and her deep black eyes, she had every 




Dr. Charles A. Eastman, 
Famous Sioux Author, Orator and Physician. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 97 

characteristic of Caucasian descent. The motherless 
lad was reared by his grandmother and an uncle in 
the wilds of Manitoba, where he learned thoroughly, 
the best of the ancient folk lore, religion and wood- 
craft of his people.^ Thirty years of civilization have 
not dimmed his joy in the life of the wilderness nor 
caused him to forget his love and sympathy for the 
primitive people and the animal friends, who were the 
intimates of his boyhood. 

He is very popular as a writer for the leading mag- 
azines. "His Recollections of Wild Life" in St. Nich- 
olas, and his stories of "Wild Animals" in Harper, 
have entertained thousands of juvenile as well as adult 
readers. His first book, "Indian boyhood," which ap- 
peared in 1902, has passed through several editions, 
and met with hearty appreciation. "Red Hunters and 
the Animal People," published in 1904, bids fair to be, 
at least, equally popular. 

During the last two years, he has lectured in many 
towns from Maine to California and he is welcomed 
everywhere. His specialty is the customs, laws, re- 
ligion, etc., of the Sioux. Witty, fluent, intellectual, 
trained in both methods of education, he is eminenly 
fitted to explain, in an inimitable and attractive man- 
ner, the customs, beliefs and superstitions of the In- 
dian. He describes not only the life and training of 
the boy, but the real Indian as no white man could 
possibly do. He brings out strongly the red man's 
wit, music, poetry and eloquence. He also explains 
graphically from facts gained from his own people, the 
great mystery of the battle of the Little Big Horn in 



98 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

which the gallant Custer and brave men went to their 
bloody death. 

He was married in 1891 at New York City, to Miss 
Elaine Goodale, a finely cultured young lady from 
Massachusetts, herself a poetess and prose writer of 
more than ordinary ability. 

They have lived very happily together ever since and 
are the parents of five lovely children. They have 
lived in Washington and St. Paul and are now resi- 
dents of Amherst, Massachusetts. Whether in his 
physician's office, in his study, on the lecture platform, 
in the press or in his own home, Dr. Charles Alexander 
Eastman is a most attractive personality. 



IX 

JOHN 

The Beloved of the Sioux Nation 
Rev. John P. Williamson, D.D., of Greenwood, 
South Dakota, was born in the month of October, 
1835, in one of Joseph Renville's log cabins, 
with dirt roof and no floor: and was the first white 
child born in Minnesota, outside of the soldier's fami- 
lies at Fort Snelling. His father, the Rev. Thomas 
S. Williamson, M. D., was the first ordained mission- 
ary appointed to labor among the Sioux Indians. 
He came out to the new Northwest on an exploring 
expedition in 1834, visiting the Indian camps at Wa- 
bawsha. Red Wing, Kaposia, and others. 

He returned in the spring of 1835, with his family 
and others who were appointed. 

After the arrival of this missionary party. Dr. Will- 
iamson and his colleagues, lived and labored contin- 
uously among the Indians the remainder of their lives. 
Their work for the Master has not suffered any in- 
terruption, but is still carried on successfully and vig- 
orously by their successors. 

John P. Williamson grew up in the midst of the In- 
dians. He mastered the Sioux language in early boy- 
hood. As a lad, he had the present sites of Minne- 
apolis and St. Paul for his playgrounds and little In-^ 
dian lads for his playmates. Among these, was Lit- 
tle Crow, who afterwards became infamous in his sav- 
age warfare, against the defenseless settlers in west- 
ern Minnesota, in 1862. 



]oo AMONG THE SIOUX. 

He was early dedicated to the work of the gospel 
ministry. In his young manhood he was sent to Ohio, 
for his education. In 1857, he graduated at Marietta 
College, and in i860, at Lane Seminary, Cincinnatti. 
In 1859 he was licensed by Dakota (Indian) Presby- 
tery, and ordained, by the same body, in 1861. The 
degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Yankton, 
(S. D.) college in 1890. He recognized no call to 
preach the gospel save to the Sioux Indians, and for 
forty-six years, he has given his whole life zealously 
to this great work. He has thrown his whole life un- 
reservedly into it. xA.nd he has accomplished great 
things for the Master and the tribe to which he has 
ministered. 

In i860 he established a mission and organized a 
Presbyterian church of twelve members at Red Wood 
Agency on the Minnesota. These were both dstroyed, 
in the outbreak two years later. He spent the winter 
of 1862-3, in evangelistic work, among the Sioux, in 
the prison-camp at Fort Snelling, where 1,500 were 
gathered under military guard. An intense re- 
ligious interest sprung up amongst them and contin- 
ued for months. Young Dr. Williamson so minister- 
ed unto them, that the whole camp was reached and 
roused, and the major part of the adults were led to 
Christ. Many, including scores of the children of the 
believers, were baptized. A Presbyterian congregation 
of more than one hundred communicants was organiz- 
ed. This church was afterwards united with the 
church of the Prison-pen, at Crow Creek, Nebraska. 



SOWING AND REAPING. loi 

In 1883, he was appointed superintendent oi Presby- 
terian missions among the Sioux Indians. He has ev- 
er abounded in self-sacrificing and successful labors a- 
mong this tribe. He has organized Nineteen (19) 
congregations and erected twenty-three (23) church 
edifices. In twenty-three years he has traveled two 
hundred thousand miles in the prosecution of these ar- 
duous labors. The number of converts cannot be reck- 
oned up. 

In 1866, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Vannice. 
To them there have been born four sons and three 
daughters, who are still living. In 1869 he establish- 
ed the Yankton mission, which has ever since been a 
great center, moral and spiritual, to a vast region. At 
the same time he established his home at Greenwood, 
South Dakota, and from that, as his mission head- 
quarters, he has gone to and from in his great mission- 
ary tours throughout the Dakota land. 

He has, also, abounded in literary labors. For six- 
teen years he was the chief editor of "lapi Oayi," an 
Indian weekly. In 1864, he published 'Towa Wow- 
spi," an Indian Spelling Book, and in 1865, a collection 
of Dakota Hymns. His greatest literary work, how- 
ever, was an edition of the "Dakota Dictionary," in 
1871, and other later editions. 

He has won the affections of the whole Sioux nation. 
They bow willingly to his decisions, and follow gladly 
his counsels. To them, he is a much greater man than 
President Roosevelt. AMiile he has passed the limit of 
liis three-score years and ten — forty-six of them in 
frontier service — his bow still abides in strength, and 



102 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

he still abounds in manifold labors. He is still bring- 
ing forth rich fruitage in his old age. 

Every white dweller among the Indians is known by 
some special cognomen. His is simply ''John." And 
when it is pronounced, by a Sioux Indian as a mem- 
ber of the tribe always does it so lovingly, all who hear 
it know he refers to ''J<^hn, the Beloved of the Sioux 
Nation." 



X 
THE MARTYRS OF OLD ST. ]DE. 

One of the most touching tragedies recorded in the 
annals of the new Northwest, was enacted in the sixth 
decade of the nineteenth century, on the borders of 
Prince Rupert's Land and the Louisiana purchase 
(now^ Manitoba and North Dakota). It is a pictur- 
esque spot, where the Pembina river cuts the inter- 
national bcundar}' line in its course to the southeast 
to join the Red River of the North in its course to 
Hudson's bay. 

Sixty years ago, in this place, encircled Ijy the 
wood-crowned mountain and the forest-lined river 
and prairies, rich as the gardens of the gods, there 
stood a village and trading post of considerable im- 
portance, named after the patron saint of the Roman 
Catholic church, in its midst — St. Joseph — ^commonly 
called St. Joe. It was a busy, bustling town, with a 
mixed population of 1,500. Most of these dwelt in 
tents of skin. There were, also, two or three large 
trading posts and thirty houses, built of large, hewn 
timbers mudded smoothly w^ithin and without and 
roofed with shingles. Some of these were neat and 
pretty; one had window-shutters. It was the cen- 
ter of an extensive fur trade with the Indian tribes of 
the Missouri river. Many thousands of buffalo and 
other skins were shipped annually to St. Paul in carts. 
Sometimes a train of four hundred of these woodeii 
carts started together for St. Paul, a distance of four 
hundred miles. 



104 A-AIONG THE SIOUX. 

But old things have passed away. The village ot 
old St. Joe is now marked only by some cellar exca- 
vations. It possesses, however, a sad interest as the 
scene of the martyrdom of Protestant missionaries on 
this once wild frontier, then so far removed from the 
abodes of civilization. 

James Tanner was a converted half-breed, who with 
his wife labored, in 1849, ^^ a missionary at Lake Win- 
nibogosh, Minnesota. His father had been stolen, 
when a lad, from his Kentucky home, by the Indians. 
Near the close of 1849 ^e visited a brother in the Pem- 
bina region. He became so deeply interested in the ig- 
norant condition of the people there, that he made a 
tour of the East in their behalf. He visited New York, 
Washington and other cities, and awakened consider- 
able interest in behalf of the natives of this region- 
While east he became a member of the Baptist Church. 
He returned to St. Joe, in 1852, accompanied by a 
young man named Benjamin Terry', of St. Paul, to op- 
en a mission among the Pembina Chippewas and half 
breeds under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary^ 
Societ}'. Terry was very slight and youthful in ap- 
pearance, quiet and retiring in disposition and was 
long spoken of, by the half-breeds, as "Tanner's Boy."^ 
They visited the Red River (Selkirk) settlement (now 
Winnipeg) . While there, Terry wooed and won one of 
the daughters of the Selkirk settlers, a dark-eyed hand- 
some Scotch lass, to whom he expected to be married 
in a few months. But, alas, ere the close of summer, 
he was waylaid, by a savage Sioux, shot full of arrows, 
his arm broken and his entire scalp carried away. Mr. 
Tanner secured permission to bury him in the Roman 



AMONG THE SIOUX 105 

Catholic Cemetery in the corner reserved for suicides, 
heretics and unbaptized infants. Thus ended in blood, 
the first effort to establish a Protestant mission in the 
Pembina country. 

June I, 1853, a band of Presbyterian missionaries 
arrived at St. Joe. It was composed of the Reverends- 
A.lonzo Barnard and David Brainard Spencer, their 
wives and children. They came in canoes and in carts 
from Red and Cass lakes, Minnesota, where for ten 
years, they had labored as missionaries among the 
Chippewas. They removed to St. Joe, at the earnest 
request of Governor Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota, 
and others familiar with their labors and the needs of 
the Ptembina natives. Mrs. Barnard's health soon 
gave way. Her husband removed her to the Selkirk 
settlement, one hundred miles to the north, for medical 
aid. Her health continued to fail so rapidly that by 
her strong desire they attempted to return to St. Joe. 
The first night they encamped. in a little tent on the 
bleak northern plain in the midst of a fierce wind- 
storm. The chilling winds penetrated the folds of the 
tent. All night long the poor sufferer lay in her hus- 
band's arms, moaning constantly : ''Hold me close ; oh, 
hold me close." They were compelled to return to the 
settlement, where after a few days more of intense 
sufl'ering, she died, Oct. 22, 1853, of quick consump- 
tion, caused by ten years exposure and suffering for 
the welfare of the Indians. 

Mrs. Barnard was first interred at the Selkirk set- 
tlement, in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). 
In the absense of other clergymen, Mr. Barnard was 



io6 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

compelled to officiate at his wife's funeral himself. In 
obedience to her dyino^ request, Mrs. Barnard's re- 
mains were removed to St. Joe and re-interred in the 
yard of the humble mission cabin, Dec. 3, 1853. 

In 1854^ Mr. Barnard visited Ohio to provide a 
home for his children. On his return, at Belle Prair- 
ie, Minnesota, midway between St. Paul and St. Joe, 
he met Mr. Spencer and his three motherless children, 
journeying four hundred miles by ox-cart to St. Paul. 
There in the rude hovel in which they spent the nig-ht, 
Mr. Barnard baptized Mr. Spencer's infant son, now 
an honored minister of the Congregational church in 
Wisconsin. On his arrival at St. Joe Mr. Barnard foruid 
another mound close by the grave of his beloved wife. 

The story of this third grave is, also, written in 
blood. It was Aug. 30, 1854. The hostile Sioux 
were infesting the Pembina region. Only the pre- 
vious month, had Mrs. Spencer written to a far distant 
friend in India: ''Last December the Lord gave us a 
little son, whose smiling face cheers many a lonely 
hour." On this fatal night, she arose to care for this 
darling boy. A noise at the window attracted her at- 
tention. She withdrew the curtain to ascertain the 
cause. Three Indians stood there with loaded rifles 
and fired. Three bullets struck her, two in her throat 
and one in her breast. She neither cried out nor 
spoke, but reeling to her bed, with her babe in her 
amis, knelt down, where she was soon discovered by 
her husband, when he returned from barricading the 
door. She su leered intensely for several hours and 
then died. And till daybreak Mr. Spencer sat in a 



AMONG THE SIOUX 107 

horrid dream, holding his dead wife in his arms. The 
baby lay in the rude cradle near by, bathed in his moth- 
er's blood. The two elder children stood by terrified 
and weeping. Such was the distressing scene which 
the neighbors beheld in the morning, when they came 
with their proffers of sympathy and help. The friend- 
ly half-breeds came in, cared for the poor children and 
prepared the dead mother for burial. A half-breed 
dug the grave and nailed a rude box together for a cof- 
fin. Then with a bleeding heart, the sore bereaved 
man consigned to the bosom of the friendly earth the 
remains of his murdered wife. 

Within the past thirty years civilization has rapidly 
taken possession of this lovely region. Christian homes 
and Christian churches cover these rich prairies. The 
prosperous and rapidly growing village of Walhalla 
(Paradise) nestles in the bosom of this lovely vale 
and occupies contentedly the former site of Old St. Joe. 

June 21, 1888, one of the most interesting events 
in the history of North Dakota occurred at the Presby- 
terian cemetery, which crowns the brow of the mount- 
ain, overlooking Walhalla. It was the unveiling of 
the monument erected by the Woman's Synodical Mis- 
sionary Society of North Dakota, which they had pre- 
viously erected to the memory of Sarah Philena Bar- 
nard and Cornelia Spencer, two of the three "Martyrs 
(^f St. Toe." The monument is a beautiful and appro- 
priate one of white marble. The broken pieces of old 
stone formerly placed on Mrs. Barnard's grave, long 
scattered and lost, were discovered, cemented together 
and placed upon her new grave. The Rev. Alonzo 



io8 AMONG THE SIOUX. 

Barnard, seventy-one years of age, accompanied by his 
daughter, was present. Standing upon the graves of 
the martyrs, with tremulous voice and moistened eyes, 
he gave to the assembled multitude a history of their 
early missionary toil in the abodes of savagery. It 
was a thrilling story, the interest intensified by the sur- 
roundings. The half-breed women who prepared 
Mrs. Spencer's body for the burial and who washed 
and dressed the little babe after his baptism in his 
mother's blood, were present. The same half-breed 
who dug Mrs. Spencer's grave in 1854 dug the new 
grave in 1888. Several pioneers famihar with the 
facts of the tragedy at the time of its occurrence were 
also present. 

"The Martyr's Plot," the last resting place of these 
devoted servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a beau- 
tiful spot, on the hillside, in the Presbyterian Ceme- 
tery at Walhalla. It is enclosed by a neat fence, and 
each of these three martyr's graves is marked by a 
white stone, with an appropriate inscription. 

The Rev. Alonzo Barnard retired to Michigan, 
where he gave five years of missionary toil to the 
Chippewas at Omene and many other years of helpful 
service to the white settlers at other points in that 
state. In 1883 he retired from the work of the active 
ministry and spent the remainder of his days with his 
children. 

He died April 14, 1905, at Pomona, Michigan, at 
the home of his son, Dr. James Barnard, in the eighty- 
eighth year of his age. There is a large and flourish- 



AMONG THE SIOUX 109 

ing Episcopal Indian church at Leech Lake. Minne- 
sota, the scene of Mr. Barnard's labors from 1843-52. 
The rector is the Rev. Charles T. Wright, a full- 
blood Chippewa. He is the eldest son of that famous 
chieftain. Gray Cloud and is now himself, chief of all 
the Chppewas. "Thus one soweth and another reap- 
eth." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



'll'I'-'lll'llillllilllllJllJliill 

003 355 154 A 



